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G.P.Putnam's Sons 

'' New York 







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Copyright, 1917 

BY 

BRUCE BAIRNSPATHER 

vSeventh Impression 

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Ube Tknfcherbocfter press, flew lorft 



MY OLD PALS 

"BILL," "BERT," and "ALF" 

WHO HAVE SAT IN THE MUD WITH ME 



FOREWORD 

Down South, in the Valley of the Somme, far 
from the spots recorded in this book, I began 
to write this story. 

In billets it was. I strolled across the old 
farmyard and into the wood beyond. Sitting 
by a gurgling Httle stream, I began, with the 
aid of a notebook and a pencil, to record the 
joys and sorrows of my first six months in 
France. 

I do not claim any unique quality for these 
experiences. Many thousands have had the 
same. I have merely, by request, made a 
record of my times out there, in the way that 
they appeared to me. 

Bruce Bairnsfather. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Chapter I i 

Landing at Havre — Tortoni's — Follow the tram 
lines — Orders for the front. 

Chapter II , 13 

Tortuous travelling — Clippers and tablets — 
Dumped at a siding — I join my battalion. 

Chapter III 25 

Those Plugstreet trenches — Mud and rain — 
Flooded out — A hopeless dawn. 

Chapter IV . . . . -34 

More mud — Rain and bullets — A bit of cake 
— "Wind up" — Night rounds. 

Chapter V 46 

My man Friday — "Chuck us the biscuits" — 
Relieved— Billets. 

Chapter VI 52 

The Transport farm — Fleeced by the Flemish 
— Riding — Nearing Christmas. 

Chapter VII . . . . . 6i 

A projected attack — Digging a sap — An 'ell of 
a night — The attack — Puncturing Prussians. 



yiii CONTENTS 

PAGB 

Chapter VIII . . . . .69 

Christmas Eve — ^A lull in hate — Britcm cum 
Boche. 

Chapter IX . . . . . .82 

Souvenirs — A ride to Nieppe — ^Tea at H. Q.— 
Trenches once more. 

Chapter X ... . . .87 

My partial escape from the mud — The deserted 
village — My "cottage." 

Chapter XI 94 

Stocktaking — Fortifying— Nebulous Fragments. 

Chapter XII 106 

a brain wave — Making a "funk hole" — Plug- 
street Wood — Sniping. 

Chapter XIII 117 

Robinson Crusoe — ^That turbulent table. 

Chapter XIV 123 

The Amphibians — Fed up, but determined — 
The gun parapet. 

Chapter XV 130 

Arrival of the "Johnsons"— "Where did that 
one go?" — The First Fragment dispatched — 
The exodus — Where? 

Chapter XVI 139 

New trenches — ^The night inspection — Letter 
from the Bystander. 



CONTENTS ix 

PAGE 

Chapter XVII . . . . . i45 

Wulverghem — The Douve — Corduroy boards 
— Back at our fann. 

Chapter XVIII . . .... 158 

The painter and decorator — ^Fragments forming 
— Night on the mud prairie. 

Chapter XIX 169 

Visions of leave— Dick Turpin — ^Leave! 

Chapter XX . . . . . i75 

That leave train — My old pal — London and 
home — The call of the wild. 

Chapter XXI . . . . .188 

Back from leave — That "blinkin' moon" — 
Johnson *oles — Tommy and "f rightfulness" — 
Exploring expedition. 

Chapter XXII . . . . .196 

A dayUght stalk — The disused trench — "Did 
they see me?" — A good sniping position. 

Chapter XXIII . . . .202 

Our moated farm — Wulverghem — The Curb's 
house — ^A shattered church — More "heavies" 
— A farm on fire. 

Chapter XXIV 212 

That ration fatigue — Sketches in request — 
Bailleul — Baths and lunatics — How to conduct 
a war. 

Chapter XXV 219 

Getting stale — Longing for change — ^We leave 
the Douve — On the march — Spotted fever — Ten 
days' rest. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 



Chapter XXVI . . . . . 229 

A pleasant change — Suzette, Berthe, and 
Marthe — "La jeune fille farouche" — Andre. 

Chapter XXVII . . . .237 

Getting fit — Caricaturing the Curd — "Dirty- 
work ahead" — A projected attack — Unlooked- 
for orders. 

Chapter XXVIII . . . .248 

We march for Ypres — Halt at Locre — ^A bleak 
camp and meagre fare — Signs of battle — First 
view of Ypres. 

Chapter XXIX 260 

Getting nearer — A lugubrious party — Still 
nearer — Blazing Ypres — Orders for attack. 

Chapter XXX . . . . .268 

Rain and mud — A trying march — In the thick 
of it — A wounded officer — Heavy shelling — I 
get my "quietus!" 

Chapter XXXI 285 

Slowly recovering — Field hospital — ^Ambulance 
train — Back in England. 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGB 

Bruce Bairnsfather . . Frontispiece 

The Birth of " Fragments '*: Scribbles on 
THE Farmhouse Walls ... 5 

That Astronomical Annoyance, the Star 
Shell 23 

"Plugstreet Wood" .... 41 

A Hopeless Dawn .... 59 

The Usual Line in Billeting Farms . 77 

*' Chuck us the Biscuits, Bill, the 
Fire Wants Mendin'" • . • 95 

"Shut that Blinkin' Door, there's a 
'ell of a Draught in 'ere" . .113 

A Memory of Christmas, 191 4 . . 131 

The Sentry 149 

A Messines Memory: *"0w about Shiftin* 
A Bit FURTHER DOWN the Road, Fred ? " 167 

"Old Soldiers Never Die, they Simply 

Fades Away" 185 

zi 



xii ILLUSTRATIONS 

FAGB 

Photograph of the Author. St. Yvon, 
Christmas Day, 19 14 . . . 203 

Off **in" again 221 

"Poor Old Maggie! She Seems to be 
'avin' it Dreadful Wet at 'ome " . 239 

The Tin Opener . . . . .257 

"They're Devils to Snipe, ain't they, 

Bill?" 275 

Old Bill 281 



BULLETS AND BILLETS 



BULLETS AND BILLETS 

CHAPTER I 

LANDING AT HAVRE— TORTONl'S— FOLLOW 
THE TRAM LINES— ORDERS FOR THE 
FRONT 



LIDING up the Seine, on a 
. transport crammed to the lid with 
troops, in the still, cold hours of a 
November morning, was my debut 
into the war. It was about 6 A.M. 
when our boat silently slipped along past 
the great wooden sheds, posts, and complica- 
tions of Havre Harbour. I had spent most of 
the twelve-hour trip down somewhere in the 
depths of the ship, dealing out rations to the 



2 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

hundred men that I had brought with me 
from Plymouth. This sounds a comparatively- 
simple process, but not a bit of it. To begin 
with, the ship was filled with troops to bursting 
point, and the mere matter of proceeding from 
one deck to another was about as difficult as 
trying to get round to see a friend at the other 
side of the ground at a Crystal Palace Cup 
final. 

I stood in a queue of Gordons, Seaforths, 
Worcesters, etc., slowly moving up one, until, 
finally arriving at the companion (nearly said 
staircase), I tobogganed down into the hold, and 
spent what was left of the night dealing out 
those rations. Having finished at last, I came 
to the surface again, and now, as the transport 
glided along through the dirty waters of the 
river, and as I gazed at the motley collection of 
Frenchmen on the various wharves, and saw a 
variety of soldiery, and a host of other warlike 
"props/' I felt acutely that now I was in the 
war at last — the real thing! For some time I 
had been rehearsing in England; but that was 
over now, and here I was — in the common or 
garden vernacular — " in the soup. " 

At last we were alongside, and in due course 



LANDING AT HAVRE 



I had collected that hundred men of mine, 
and found that the number was still a hun- 
dred, after 
which I 
landed 
with the 
rest, re- 
ceived 
instruc- 
tions and 
a guide, 
then start- 
ed off for 
the Base 
Camps. 

These 
Camps 
were a- 
bout three 
miles out 
of Havre, 
and thith- 
e r the 

whole contents of the ship marched in one long 
column, accompanied on either side by a crowd 
of ragged little boys shouting for souvenirs 




^^ti ens 



4 ' BULLETS AND BILLETS 

and biscuits. I and my hundred men were 
near the rear of the procession and in about 
an hour's time arrived at the Base Camps. 

I don't know that it is possible to construct 
anything more atrociously hideous or uninter- 
esting than a Base Camp. It consists, in mili- 
tary parlance, of nothing more than : — 

Fields, grassless . . . . i 

Tents, bell . . . . 500 

In fact, a huge space, once a field, now a 
bog, on which are perched rows and rows of 
squalid tents. 

I stumbled along over the mud with my 
troupe, and having found the Adjutant, after 
a considerable search, thought that my task 
was over, and that I could slink off into some 
odd tent or other and get a sleep and a rest. 
Oh no! — the Adjutant had only expected fifty 
men, and here was I with a hundred. 

Consternation! Two hours' telephoning and 
intricate back-chat with the Adjutant eventu- 
ally led to my being ordered to leave the ex- 
pected fifty and take the others to another Base 
Camp hard by, and see if they would like to 
have them there. 




THE BIRTH OF "FRAGMENTS*': SCRIBBLES ON THE FARMHOUSE WALLS 



TORTONI'S 7 

The rival Base Camp expressed a willingness 
to have this other fifty, so at last I had finished, 
and having found an empty tent, lay down on 
the ground, with my greatcoat for a pillow and 
went to sleep. 

I awoke at about three in the afternoon, 
got hold of a bucket of water and proceeded 
to have a wash. Having shaved, washed, 
brushed my hair, and had a look at the general 
effect in the pohshed back of my cigarette case 
(all my kit was still at the docks), I emerged 
from my canvas cave and started off to have a 
look roimd. 

I soon discovered a small cafe down the 
road, and found it was a place used by several 
of the officers who, like myself, were temporarily 
dumped at the Camps. I went in and got 
something to eat. Quite a good little place 
upstairs there was, where one could get break- 
fast each morning: just coffee, eggs, and bread 
sort of thing. By great luck I met a pal of 
mine here ; he had come over in a boat previous 
to mine, and after we had had a bit of a refresher 
and a smoke we decided to go off down to Havre 
and see the sights. 

A tram passed along in front of this cafe, 



8 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

and this we boarded. It took about half an 
hour getting down to Havre from Bleville 
where the Camps were, but it was worth 
it. 

Tortoni's Cafe, a place that we looked upon as 
the last link with civilization: Tortoni's, with 
its blaze of light, looking-glass, "and gold paint — 
its popping corks and hurrying waiters — made 
a deep and pleasant indent on one*s mind, for 
"to-morrow" meant "the Front" for most of 
those who sat there. 

As we sat in the midst of that kaleidoscopic 
picture, formed of French, Belgian, and English 
uniforms, intermingled with the varied and 
gaudy robes of the local nymphs; as we mused 
in the midst of dense clouds of tobacco smoke, 
we could not help reflecting that this might be 
the last time we should look on such scenes of 
revelry, and came to the conclusion that the 
only thing to do was to make the most of it 
while we had the chance. And, by Gad, we 
did. . . . 

A little after midnight I parted from my 
companion and started off to get back to that 
Base Camp of mine. 

Standing in the main square of the town, I 



FOLLOW THE TRAM LINES 9 

realized a few points which tended to take the 
edge off the success of the evening: 

No. I . — It was too late to get a tram. 

No. 2. — ^All the taxis had disappeared. 

No. 3. — It was pouring with rain. 

No. 4. — I had three miles to go. 

I started off to walk it — but had I known 
what that walk was going to be, I wotdd have 
buttoned myself round a lamp-post and stayed 
where I was. 

I made that fatal mistake of thinking that 
I knew the way. 

Leaning at an angle of forty-five degrees 
against the driving rain, I staggered along the 
tram lines past the Casino, and feeling con- 
vinced that the tram lines must be correct, de- 
termined to follow them. 

After about half an hour's walk, mostly 
uphill, I became rather suspicious as to the 
road being quite right. 

Seeing a sentry-box outside a palatial edifice 
on the right, I tacked across the road and 
looked for the sentry. 

A lurid thing in gendarmes advanced upon 
me, and I let off one of my curtailed French 
sentences at him: 



10 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

" Pour B16ville, Monsie ur? " 

I can't give his answer in French, but being 
interpreted I think it meant that I was com- 
pletely on the wrong road, and that he wasn't 
certain as to how I could ever get back on it 
without returning to Havre and starting again. 

He produced an envelope, made an unin- 
telligible sketch on the back of it, and started 
me off again down the way I had come. 

I realized what my mistake had been. There 
was evidently a branch tram line, which I had 
followed, and this I thought could only have 
branched off near the Casino, so back I went to 
the Casino and started again. 

I was right about the branch line, and started 
merrily off again, taking as I thought the main 
line to Bleville. 

After another half-hour of this, with eyes 
feverishly searching for recognizable land- 
marks, I again began to have doubts as to the 
veracity of the tram lines. However, pretend- 
ing that I placed their honesty beyond all doubt, 
I plodded on; but round a comer, found the 
outlook so unfamiliar that I determined to ask 
again. Not a soul about. Presently I dis- 
covered a small house, standing back off the 



ORDERS FOR THE FRONT ii 

road and showing a thin slit of light above the 
shutters of a downstairs window. I tapped on 
the glass. A sound as of someone hurriedly- 
trying to hide a pile of coverless umbrellas in a 
cupboard was followed by the opening of the 
window, and a bristling head was silhouetted 
against the light. 

I squeezed out the same old sentence: 

"Pour Bleville, Monsieur?" 

A fearful cataract of unintelligible words 
burst from the head, but left me almost as 
much in the dark as ever, though with a faint 
glimmering that I was "warmer." I felt that 
if I went back about a mile and turned to the 
left, all would be well. 

I thanked the gollywog in the window, who, 
somehow or other, I think must have been a 
printer working late, and started off once more. 

After another hour's route march I came 
to some scattered houses, and finally to a 
village. I was indignantly staring at a house 
when suddenly, joy! — I realized that what I 
was looking at was an unfamiliar view of the 
cafe where I had breakfasted earlier in the day. 

Another ten minutes and I reached the Camp. 
Time now 2.30 a.m. I thought I would just 



12 BULLETS AND BILLETS . 

take a look in at the Orderly Room tent to see 
if there were any orders in for me. It was lucky 
I did. Inside I found an orderly asleep in a 
blanket, and woke him. 

"Anything in for me?" I asked. *' Bairns- 
father's my name. " 

"Yes, sir, there is," came through the 
blanket, and getting up he went to the table 
at the other end of the tent. He sleepily 
handed me the wire: "Lieutenant Bairns- 
father to proceed to join his battaHon as 
machine-gun officer. . . . " 

"What time do I have to push off?" I in- 
quired. 

"By the eight o'clock from Havre to-morrow, 
sir." 

Time now 3 a.m. To-morrow — the Front! 
And then I crept into my tent and tried to sleep. 



CHAPTER II 

TORTUOUS TRA.VELLING— CLIPPERS AND TAB- 
LETS — DXBIPED AT A SIDING — I JOIN MY 
BATTALION 

Not much sleep that night, a sort of feverish 
coma instead: wild dreams in which I and the 
gendarme were attacking a German trench, 
the officer in charge of which we found to be 
the Base Camp Adjutant after all. 

However, I got up early— packed my few 
belongings in my valise, which had mysteri- 
ously turned up from the docks, and went off 
on the tram down to Havre. That hundred 
men I had brought over had nothing to do with 
me now. I was entirely on my own, and was 
off to the Front to join my battalion. Down 
at Havre the officials at the station gave me a 
complicated yellow diagram, known as a travel- 
ling pass, and I got into a carriage in the train 

bound for Rouen. 

13 



14 • BULLETS AND BILLETS 

I was not alone now ; a whole forest of second 
lieutenants like myself were in the same train, 
and with them a solid, congealed mass of valises, 
packs, revolvers, and haversacks. At last the 
train started, and after the usual hour spent in 
feeling that you have left all the most important 
things behind, I settled down on a mound of 
equipment and tried to do a bit of a sleep. 

So what with sleeping, smoking, and talking, 
we jolted along until we pulled up at Rouen. 
Here I had to leave the train, for some obscure 
reason, in order to go to the Palais de Justice 
to get another ticket. I padded off down over 
the bridge into Rouen, found the Palais, went 
in, and was shown along to an office that dealt 
in tickets. 

In this dark and dingy oak-panelled saloon, 
illuminated by electric light and the glittering 
reflections from gold braid, there lurked a gen- 
eral or two. I was here given another pass 
entitling me to be deposited at a certain siding 
in Flanders. 

Back I went to the station, and in due 
course rattled off in the train again towards the 
North. 

A fearfully long journey we had, up to the 



TORTUOUS TRAVELLING 15 

Front! The worst of it was that nobody 
knew — or, if they did, wouldn't tell you — 
which way you were going, or how long it 
would take to get to your destination. For 
instance, we didn't know we were going to 
Rouen till we got there; and we didn't know 
we were going from Rouen to Boulogne until, 
after a night spent in the train, the whole 
outfit jolted and jangled into the Gare de Some- 
thing, down by the wharf at that salubrious 
seaport. 

We spent a complete day and part of an 
evening at Boulogne, as our 
train did not leave until 
midnight. 

I and another chap who 
was going to the next rail- 
head to mine at the Front, 
went off together into the 
town and had lunch at a cafe in the High 
Street. We then strolled aroimd the shops, 
buying a few things we needed. Not very 
attractive things either, but I'll mention 
them here to show how we thought and felt. 

We first went to a "pharmacie" and got 
some boxes of morphia tablets, after which 




i6 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

we went to an ironmonger's (don't know the 
French for it) and each bought a ponderous 
pair of barbed wire cutters. So what with 
wire clippers and morphia tablets, we were 
gay. About four o'clock we calmed down a 
bit, and went to the same restaurant where 
we had lunched. 

Here we had tea with a couple of French 
girls, exceeding good to look upon, who had 
apparently escaped from Lille. We got on 
splendidly with them till a couple of French 
officers, one with the Legion of Honour, came 
along to the next table. That took all the 
shine out of us, so we determined to quit, and 
cleared off to the Hotel de Folkestone, where 
we had a bath to console us. Dinner followed, 
and then, feeling particularly hilarious, I made 
my will. Not the approved will of family 
lawyer style, but just a letter announcing, in 
bald and harsh terms that, in the event of my 
remaining permanently in Belgium, I wanted 
my total small worldly wealth to be disposed of 
in a certain way. 

Felt better after this outburst, and, rejoining 
my pal, we went off into the town again and by 
easy stages reached the train. 



OFF FOR THE FRONT 17 

At about I A.M. the train started, and 
we creaked and groaned our way out of Bou- 
logne. We were now really off for the Front, 
and the situation, consequently, became more 
exciting. We were slowly getting nearer and 
nearer to the real thing. But what a train ! It 
dribbled and rumbled along at about five miles 
an hour, and, I verily believe, stopped at every 
farmhouse within sight of the line. I could 
not help thinking that the engine driver was a 
German in disguise, who was trying to prevent 
our ever arriving at our destination. I tried 
to sleep, but each time the train pulled up, I 
woke with a start and thought that we'd got 
there. This went on for many hours, and as I 
knew we must be getting somewhere near, my 
dreams became worse and worse. 

I somehow began to think that the engine 
driver was becoming cautious — (he was a 
Frenchman again) — thought that, perhaps, he 
had to get down occasionally and walk ahead 
a bit to see if it was safe to go on. 

Nobody in the train had the least idea 
where the Front was, how far off, or what it 
was like. For all we knew, our train might 
be going right up into the rear of the front line 



i8 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

trenches. Somewhere round 6 a.m. I reached 
my siding. All the others, except myself and 
one other, had got out at previous halts. I 
got down from the carriage on to the cinder 
track, and went along the line to the station. 
Nobody about except a few Frenchmen, so I 
went back to the carriage again, and sat looking 
out through the dimmed window at the rain- 
soaked flat country. The other fellow with me 
was doing the same. A sudden, profound de- 
pression came over me. Here was I and this 
other cove dumped down at this horrible siding ; 
nothing to eat, and nobody to meet us. How 
rude and callous of someone, or something. I 
looked at my watch; it had stopped, and on 
trying to wind it I found it was broken. 

I stared out of the window again; gave that 
up, and stared at the opposite seat. Suddenly 
my eye caught something shiny under the seat. 
I stooped and picked it up; it was a watch! I 
have always looked upon this episode as an 
omen of some sort; but of what sort I can't 
quite make out. Finding a watch means finding 
**Time" — perhaps it meant I would find time to 
write this book; on the other hand it may have 
meant that my time had come — who knows? 



JOINING MY BATTALION 19 

At about eight o'clock by my new watch 
I again made an attack on the station, and 
at last found the R.T.O., which, being inter- 
preted, means the Railway Transport Officer. 
He told me where my battalion was to be 
found; but didn't know whether they were 
in the trenches or out. He also added that if 
he were me he wouldn't hurry about going 
there, as I could probably get a lift in an A.S.C. 
wagon later on. I took his advice, and having 
left all my tackle by his office, went into the 
nearest estaminet to get some breakfast. The 
owner, a genial but garrulous little Frenchman, 
spent quite a lot of time explaining to me how 
those hateful people, the Boches, had occupied 
his house not so long before, and had punched 
a hole in his kitchen wall to use a machine gun 
through. After breakfast I went to the station 
and arranged for my baggage to be sent on by 
an A.S.C. wagon, and then started out to 
walk to Nieppe, which I learnt was the place 
where my battalion billeted. As I plodded 
along the muddy road in the pouring rain, I 
became aware of a sound with which I was 
afterwards to become horribly familiar. 
_ "Boom!" That was all; but I knew it was 



20 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

the voice of the guns, and in that moment I 
realized that here was the war, and that I was 
in it. 

I ploughed along for about four miles down 
uninteresting mud canals — known on maps as 
roads — until, finally, I entered Nieppe. 

The battalion, I heard from a passing 
soldier, was having its last day in billets prior 
to going into the trenches again. They were 
billeted at a disused brewery at the other end 
of the town. I went on down the squalid street 
and finally found the place. 

A crowd of dirty, war-worn -looking soldiers 
were clustered about the entrance in groups. 
I went in through the large archway past 
them into the brewery yard. Soldiers every- 
where, resting, talking, and smoking. I in- 
quired where the officers* quarters were, and 
was shown to the brewery head office. Here 
I found the battalion officers, many of whom I 
knew, and went into their improvised messroom, 
which, in previous days, had apparently been 
the Brewery Board room. 

I found everything very dark, dingy, and 
depressing. That night the battalion was 
going into the trenches again, and last evenings 



OFF TO THE TRENCHES 21 

in billets are not generally very exhilarating. 
I sat and talked with those I knew, and pre- 
sently the Colonel came in, and I heard what 
the orders were for the evening. I felt very 
strange and foreign to it all, as everyone except 
myself had had their baptism of trench life, 
and, consequently, at this time I did not possess 
that calm indifference, bred of painful experi- 
ence, which is part of the essence of a true 
trench-dweller. 

The evening drew on. We had our last meal 
in billets — sardines, bread, butter, and cake sort 
of thing — slung on to the bare table by the 
soldier servants, who were more engrossed in 
packing up things they were taking to the 
trenches than in anything else. 

And now the time came to start off. I 
found the machine-gun section in charge of a 
sergeant, a most excellent fellow, who had 
looked after the section since the officer (whose 
place I had come to fill) had been wounded. 
I took over from him, and, as the battalion 
moved off along the road, fell in behind with my 
latest acquisition — a machine-gun section, with 
machine guns to match. It was quite dusk now, 
and as we neared the great Bois de Ploegstert, 



22 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

known all over the world as '' Plugstreet Wood, " 
it was nearly night. The road was getting 
rougher, and the houses, dotted about in dark 
silhouettes against the sky-line, had a curiously 
deserted and worn appearance. Everything 
was looking dark, damp, and drear. 

On we went down the road through the wood, 
stumbling along in the darkness over the 
shell-pitted track. Weird ""noises occasionally 
floated through the trees; the faint "crack" of 
a rifle, or the rumble of limber wheels. A dis- 
tant light flickered momentarily in the air, 
cutting out in bold relief the ruins of the shat- 
tered chateau on our left. On we went through 
this scene of dark and humid desolation, past 
the occasional mounds of former habitations^ 
on into the trenches before Plugstreet Wood. 




THAT ASTRONOMICAL ANNOYANCE, THE STAR SHELL, WHICH MOMENTARILY 
P'/VART TTs; VOTT TO c:r"T? TTTrMT^i? Ttrir t-Txrr* /~>Tr iv^TTrv -vott at>c> txt 



CHAPTER III 

THOSE PLUGSTREET TRENCHES — MUD AND 
RAIN — FLOODED OUT— A HOPELESS DAWN 

An extraordinary sensation — the first time 
of going into trenches. The first idea that 
struck me about them was their haphazard 
design. There was, no doubt, some very 
excellent reason for someone or other making 
those trenches as they were; but they really 
did strike me as curious when I first saw them. 
A trench will, perhaps, run diagonally across 
a field, will then go along a hedge at right 
angles, suddenly give it up and start again 
fifty yards to the left, in such a position that 
it is boimd to cross the kitchen-garden .5 a 
shattered chateau, go through the greenhouse, 
and out into the road. On getting there it 
henceforth rivals the ditch at the side in the 
amoimt of water it can run off into a row of dug- 
outs in the next field. There is, apparently, no 

25 



26 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

necessity for a trench to be in any way parallel 
to the line of your enemy; as long as he can't 
shoot you from immediately behind, that's all 
you ask. 

It was a long and weary night, that first 
one of mine in the trenches. Everything was 
strange, and wet, and horrid. First of all I 
had to go and fix up my machine guns at 
various points, and find places for the gunners 
to sleep in. This was no easy matter, as many 
of the dug-outs had fallen in and floated off down 
stream. 

In this, and subsequent descriptions of the 
trenches, I may lay myself open to the charge 
of exaggeration. But it must be remembered 
that I am describing trench life in the early days 
of 1 914, and I feel sure that those who had 
experience of them will acquit me of any such 
charge. 

To give a recipe for getting a rough idea, 
in case you want to, I recommend the following 
procedure. Select a flat ten-acre ploughed 
field, so sited that all the surface water of the 
surrounding country drains into it. Now cut 
a zigzag slot about four feet deep and three 
feet wide diagonally across, dam off as much 



PLUGSTREET TRENCHES 



27 



water as you can so as to leave about a hundred 
yards of squelchy mud ; delve out a hole at one 
side of the slot, then endeavour to live there for 
a month on bully beef and damp biscuits, whilst 
a friend has instructions to fire at you with his 
Winchester every time you put your head above 
the surface. 

Well, here I was, an3rvvay, and the next thing 
was to make the best of it. As I have before 

said, these were ^.^^ 

the days of ^ .^ ^. ip^ 

the earliest 
trenches in this 
war: days when 
we had none of 
those desirable 
"props," such 
as corrugated 
iron, floor- 
boards, and 
sand bags ad 
lib. 

When you made a dug-out in those days 
you made it out of anything you could find, 
and generally had to make it yourself. That 
first night I was "in" I discovered, after a 




28 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

humid hour or so, that our battalion wouldn't 
fit into the spaces left by the last one, and as 
regards dug-outs, the truth of that mathematical 
axiom, "Twos into one, won't go," suddenly- 
dawned on me with painful clearness. I was 
faced with making a dug-out, and it was raining, 
of course. {Note. — Whenever I don't state the 
climatic conditions, read "raining.") After 
sloshing about in several primitive trenches in 
the vicinity of the spot where we had fixed our 
best machine-gun position, my sergeant and I 
discovered a sort of covered passage in a ditch 
in front of a communication trench. It was a 
sort of emergency exit back from a row of ram- 
shackle, water-logged hovels in the ditch to 
the communication trench. We decided to 
make use of this passage, and arranged things 
in such a way that by scooping out the clay 
walls we made two caves, one behind the other. 
The front one was about five yards from the 
machine gun, and you reached the back cave by 
going through the outer one. It now being 
about II P.M., and having been for the last five 
hours perpetually on the scramble, through 
trenches of all sorts, I drew myself into the 
inner cave to go to sleep. ■ • 



THE FIRST NIGHT 29 

This little place was about 4 feet long, 3 feet 
high, and 3 feet wide. I got out my knife, took 
a scoop out of the clay wall, and fishing out a 
candle-end from my pocket, stuck it in the 
niche, lit it and a cigarette. I now lay down 
and tried to size up the situation and life in 
general. 

Here I was, in this horrible clay cavity, 
somewhere in Belgiimi, miles and miles from 
home. Cold, 
wet through, 
and covered 
with mud. 
This was the 
first day; 
and, so far as 
I could see, 
the future contained nothing but repetitions 
of the same thing, or worse. 

Nothing was to be heard except the occa- 
sional crack of the sniper's shot, the dripping 
of the rain, and the low murmur of voices 
from the outer cave. 

In the narrow space beside me lay my equip- 
ment; revolver, and a sodden packet of cigar- 




30 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

ettes. Everything damp, cold, and dark ; candle- 
end guttering. I think suddenly of something 
like the Empire or the Alhambra, or anything 
else that's reminiscent of brightness and life, 
and then — swish, bang — back to the reality 
that the damp clay wall is only eighteen inches 
in front of me; that here I am — that the Boche 
is just on the other side of the field; and that 
there doesn't seem the slightest chance of leav- 
ing except in an ambulance. 

My machine-gun section for the gun near by 
lay in the front cave, a couple of feet from me; 
their spasmodic talking gradually died away 
as, one by one, they dropped off to sleep. One 
more indignant, hopeless glare at the flickering 
candle-end, then I pinched the wick, ciirled up, 
and went to sleep. 



A sudden cold sort of peppermint sensation 
assailed me; I awoke and sat up. My head 
cannoned off the clay ceiling, so I partially had 
to lie down again. 

I attempted to strike a match, but found 
the whole box was damp and sodden. I heard 
a muttering of voices and a curse or two in the 



FLOODED OUT 31 

outer cavern, and presently the sergeant en- 
tered my sanctum on all fours: 

"We're bein' flooded out, sir; there's water 
a foot deep in this place of ours. " 

That explains it. I feel all roimd the back 
of my greatcoat and find I have been sleeping 
in a pool of water. 

I crawled out of my inner chamber, and the 
whole lot of us dived through the rapidly rising 
water into the ditch outside. I scrambled up 
on to the top of the bank, and tried to focus the 
situation. 

From inquiries and personal observation 
I found that the cause of the tide rising was the 
fact that the Engineers had been draining the 
trench, in the course of which process they had 
apparently struck a spring of water. 

We accepted the cause of the disaster philo- 
sophically, and immediately discussed what 
was the best thing to be done. Action of some 
sort was urgently necessary, as at present we 
were all sitting on the top of the mud bank of 
the ditch in the silent, steady rain, the whole 
party being occasionally illuminated by a Ger- 
man star shell — more like a family sitting for a 
flashlight photograph than anything else. 



32 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

We decided to make a dam. Having found 
an empty ration box and half a bag of coke, we 
started on the job of trying to fence off the water 
from our cave. After about an hour's struggle 
with the elements we at last succeeded, with the 
aid of the ration box, the sack of coke, and a few 
tins of bully, in reducing the water level inside 
to six inches. 

Here we were, now wetter than ever, cold 
as Polar bears, sitting in this hygroscopic 
catacomb at about 2 a.m. We longed for a 
fire; a fire was decided on. We had a fire 
bucket — it had started life as a biscuit tin — a 
few bits of damp wood, but no coke. "We had 
some coke, Tm sure ! Why, of course — we built 
it into the dam!" Down came the dam, out 
came the coke, and in came the water. How- 
ever, we preferred the water to the cold; so, 
finally, after many exasperating efforts, we 
got a fire going in the bucket. Five minutes' 
bliss followed by disaster. The fire bucket 
proceeded to emit such dense volumes of sul- 
phurous smoke that in a few moments we 
couldn't see a lighted match. 

We stuck it a short time longer, then one 
by one dived into the water and out into the air, 



A HOPELESS DAWN 33 

shooting out of our mud hovel to the surface 
like snakes when you pour water down their 
holes. 

Time now 3 a.m. No sleep; rain, water, 
plus smoke. A board meeting held immediately 
decides to give up sleep and dug-outs for that 
night. A motion to try and construct a chim- 
ney with an entrenching tool is defeated by five 
votes to one . . . dawn is breaking — my 
first night in trenches comes to an end. 



CHAPTER IV 



MORE MUD — RAIN AND BULLETS — ^A BIT OF 
CAKE — ''wind up" — NIGHT ROUNDS 



The rose-pink sky fades off above to blue, 
The morning star alone proclaims the dawn. 

The empty tins and barbed wire bathed in dew 
Emerge, and then another day is born. 

I WROTE that "poem" in those — trenches, 
so you can see the sort of state to which I was 
reduced. 

Well, my first trench night was over; the 
dawn had broken — everything else left to 
break had been seen to by the artillery, which 
started off generally at about eight. And 
what a fearful long day it seemed, that first 
one! As soon as it was light I began scramb- 
ling about, and having a good look at the gen- 
eral lie of things. In front was a large expanse 
of root field, at the further side of which a long 
irregular parapet marked the German trenches. 

34 



SHELLING A CHATEAU 35 

Behind those again was more root field, dented 
here and there with shell holes filled with water, 
beyond which stood a few isolated remnants 
which had once been cottages. I stood at a 
projection in one of our trenches, from where I 
could see the general shape of our line, and could 
glimpse a good view of the German arrange- 
ments. Not a soul could be seen anywhere. 
Here and there a whisp of smoke indicated a 
fire bucket. Behind our trenches, behind the 
shattered houses at the top of a wooded rise 
in the ground, stood what once must have been 
a fine chateau. As I looked, a shrieking hollow 
svhistle overhead, a momentary pause, then — 
^* Crumph ! '* showed clearly what was the matter 
with the chateau. It was being shelled. The 
Germans seemed to have a rooted objection to 
that chateau. Every morning, as we crouched 
in our mud kennels, we heard those " Crumphs, " 
and soon got to be very good judges of form. 
We knew they were shelling the chateau. When 
they didn't shell the chateau, we got it in the 
trenches; so we looked on that dear old mangled 
wreck with a friendly eye — that tapering, 
twisted, perforated spire, which they never 
could knock down, was an everlasting bait to 



36 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

the Boche, and a perfect fairy godmother to 
us. 

Oh, those days in that trench of ours! Each 
day seemed about a week long. I shared a dug- 
out with a platoon commander after that first 
night. The machine-gun section found a suit- 
able place and made a dug-out for themselves. 

Day after day, night after night, my com- 
panion and I lay and listened to the daily ex- 
plosions, read, and talked, and sloshed about 
that trench together. 

The greatest interest one had in the daytime 
was sitting on the damp straw in our clay vault, 
scraping the mud off one's saturated boots and 
clothes. The event to which one looked for- 
ward with the greatest interest was the arrival 
of letters in the evening. 

Now and again we got out of our dug-out 
and sloshed down the trench to scheme out 
some improvement or other, or to furtively look 
out across the water-logged turnip field at the 
Boche trenches opposite. Occasionally, in the 
silent, still, foggy mornings, a voice from some- 
where in the alluvial depths of a miserable 
trench, would suddenly burst into a scrap of 
song, such as 



VISITING POSITIONS 

Old soldiers never die, 
They simply fade away. 



37 



—a voice full of "fed-upness," steeped in 
determination. 

Then all would be silence for the next couple 
of hours, and so the day passed. 




'-lb Koc<i^ 4, ^^%^ 



At dusk, my job was to emerge from this 
horrible drain and go round the various machine- 
gun positions. What a job! I generally went 
alone, and in the darkness struck out across the 
sodden field, tripping, stumbling, and some- 
times falling into various shell holes on the way. 

One does a little calling at this time of day 



38 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

Having seen a gun in another trench, one looks 
up the nearest platoon commander. You 
look into so-and-so *s dug-out and find it 
empty. You ask a sergeant where the occu- 
pant is. 

"He's down the trench, sir." You push 
your way down the trench, dodging pools of 
water and stepping over fire buckets, mess-tins, 
brushing past men standing, leaning or sitting — 
right on down the trench, where, round a 
corner, you find the platoon commander. 
"Well, if we can't get any sandbags," he is 
probably saying to a sergeant, "we will just 
have to bank it up with earth, and put those 
men on the other side of the traverse, " or some- 
thing like that. He turns to me and says, 
" Come along back to my dug-out and have a bit 
of cake. Someone or other has sent one out 
from home." 

We start back along the trench. Suddenly 
a low murmuring, rattling sound can be heard 
in the distance. We stop to listen, the sound 
gets louder; everyone stops to listen — the sound 
approaches, and is now distinguishable as rifle- 
fire. The firing becomes faster and faster; 
then suddenly swells into a roar and now comes 



"WIND UP" 



39 



the phenomenon of trench warfare: "wind up" 
— the prairie fire of the trenches. 

Everyone stands to the parapet, and away 
on the left a tornado of crackling sound can 
be heard, getting louder and louder. In a 
few seconds it has swept on down the line, 
and now a deafening rattle of rifle-fire is going 
on immediately in front. Bullets are flicking 
the tops of the sandbags on the parapet in hun- 
dreds, whilst white streaks are shooting up with 
a swish into the sky and burst into bright radi- 
ating blobs of Hght — the star shell at its best. 

A curious thing, this "wind up." We never 
knew when it would come on. It is caused 
entirely by nerves. Perhaps an inquisitive 
Boche, somewhere a mile or tv/o on the left, 
had thought he saw someone approaching his 
barbed wire ; a few shots are exchanged — a shout 
or two, followed by more shots — panic — more 
shots — panic spreading — then suddenly the 
whole Hne of trenches on a front of a couple of 
miles succumbs to that weU-known malady, 
"wind up." 

In reaHty it is highly probable that there 
was no one in front near the wire, and no one 
has had the least intention of being there. 



40 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

Presently there comes a deep "boom" from 
somewhere in the distance behind, and a large 
shell sails over our heads and explodes some- 
where amongst the Boches; another and another 
and then all becomes quiet again. The rifle 
fire diminishes and soon ceases. Total result 
of one of these firework displays : several thou- 
sand rounds of ammunition squibbed off, hun- 
dreds of star shells wasted, and no casualties. 

It put the "wind up" me at first, but I soon 
got to know these affairs, and learnt to take 
them calmly. 

I went along with the platoon commander 
back to his lair. An excellent fellow he was. 
No one in this war could have hated it all more 
than he did, and no one could have more con- 
scientiously done his very best at it. Poor 
fellow, he was afterwards killed near Ypres. 

"Well, how are things going with you?" 
I said. 

"Oh, all right. They knocked down that 
same bit of parapet again to-day. I think 
they must imagine weVe got a machine gun 
there, or something. That's twice we've had 
to build it up this week. Have a bit of cake?" 

So I had a bit of cake and left him; he 



piiiW i Mii,j....,..,^j*ww.,jj:..,._^,^^^ 




AN IMPRESSION OF THE FAMOUS BOIS DE PLOEGSTERT 



NIGHT ROUNDS 43 

going back to that old parapet again, whilst 
I struck off into the dark, wet field towards 
another gun position, falling into an unfamiliar 
*' Johnson *ole" on the way. 

No one gets a better idea of the general lie 
of the position than a machine-gun officer. 
In those early, primitive days, when we had so 
few of each thing, we, of course, had few ma- 
chine guns, and these had to be sprinkled about 
a position to the best possible advantage. The 
consequence was that people like myself had to 
cover a considerable amount of ground before 
our rambles in the dark each night were done. 

One machine gun might be, say, in "Dead 
Man Farm"; another at the "Barrier" near the 
cross roads; whilst another couple were just at 
some effective spot in a trench, or in a command- 
ing position in a shattered farm or cottage 
behind the front line trenches. 

I would leave my dug-out as soon as it was 
dark and do the round of all the guns every 
night. Just as a sample, I will carry on from 
where I left the platoon commander. 

I slosh across the ploughed field at what I 
feel to be a correct angle to bring me out on 
the cross roads, where, about two hundred 



44 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

yards away, I have another gun. I scramble 
across a broken gateway and an old bit of 
trench, and close behind come to a deep cutting 
into which I jump. About five yards along 
this I come to a machine-gun emplacement, 
with a machine-gun sentry on guard. 

"Where's the corporal?" 

"I*m *ere, sir," is emitted from the slimy 
depths of a narrow low-roofed dug-out, and 
the corporal emerges, hooking back the water- 
proof sheet as he comes out to prevent the light 
showing. 

*'How about this gun, Corporal — is every- 
thing all right?" 

"Yes, sir; but I was looking around to-day, 
and thought that if we was to shift the gun over 
there, where the dead cow is, we'd get a better 
field of fire." 

Meeting adjourned to inspect this valuable 
site from the windward side. 

After a short, blood-thirsty conversation 
relative to the perforating of the enemy, I 
leave and push off into the bog again, striking 
out for another visit. Finally, after two hours' 
visiting, floundering, bullet dodging, and star 
shell shirking, accompanied by a liberal allow- 



" NARROW SQUEAKS " 45 

ance of "narrow squeaks,** I get back to my 
own bit of trench ; and tobogganing down where 
I erroneously think the clay steps are, I at last 
reach my dug-out, and entering on all fours, 
crouch amongst the damp tobacco leaves and 
straw and light a cigarette. 



CHAPTER V 



MY MAN FRIDAY — " CHUCK US THE BISCUITS" — 
RELIEVED — BILLETS 



It was during this first time up in the trenches 
that I got a soldier servant. 

As I had arrived only just in time to go with 
the battalion to the trenches, the acquisition 
had to be made by a search in the mud. I found 
a fellow who hadn't been an officer's servant 
before, but who wanted to be. I liked the look 
of him; so feeling rather like Robinson Crusoe, 
when he booked up Friday, "I got me a man." 

He lived in a dug-out about five yards away, 
and from then onwards continued with me 
right to the point where this book finishes. 
This fellow of mine did all my cooking, such as 
it was, and worked in conjunction with my 
friend, the platoon commander's servant. Cook- 
ing, at the times I write about, consisted of 
making innumerable brews of tea, and opening 

46 



SUSTAINING LIFE 47 

tins of bully and Maconochie. Occasionally 
bacon had to be fried in a mess-tin lid. One 
day my man soared off into culinary fancies and 
curried a Maconochie. I have never quite 
forgiven him for this; I am neariy right again 
now. 

These two soldier servants never had to 
leave the trench. It was their job to try and 
find something to make a fire with, and to do 
all they could to keep the water out of our dug- 
out, a task which not one of us succeeded in 
doing. My plan for sustaining Hfe imder these 
conditions was to change my boots as often as 
possible. If there wasn't time for this I used 
to try and boil the water in my boots by keeping 
my feet to the fire bucket. I always put my 
puttees on first and then a pair of thick socks, 
and finally a pair of boots. I could, by this 
means, hurriedly slip off the sodden pair of 
boots and socks and slip on another set which 
had become fairly dry by the fire. We lived 
perpetually damp, if not thoroughly wet. My 
puttees, which I rarely removed, were more like 
long rolls of the consistency of nougat than 
anything else, thanks to the mud. Dug-outs 
had no wooden linings in those days; no cor- 



48 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

rugated iron roofs; no floorboards. They were 
just holes in the clay side of the fire trench, with 
any old thing for a roof, and old straw or to- 
bacco leaves, which we pinched from some aban- 
doned farm, for a floor. So, you see, there was 
not much of a chance of dodging the moisture. 

The cold was what got me. Personally, I 
would far rather have gone without food than 
a fire. A fire of some sort was the only thing 
to cheer. Coke was scarce and always wet, and 
it was by no means uncommon to overhear a 
remark of this sort: ''Chuck us the biscuits, 
Bill; the fire wants mendin'." 

At night I would frequently sally forth to 
a cracked-up village behind, and perhaps pro- 
cure half a mantelpiece and an old clog to stoke 
our "furnace'* with. 

Well, after the usual number of long days 
and still longer nights spent under these con- 
ditions, we came to the day when it was our 
turn to go out to rest billets, and a relieving 
battalion to come in. What a splendid day 
that is! You start ''packing" at about 4 p.m. 
As soon as it is dusk the servants slink off across 
that turnip morass behind and drag our few 
belongings back to where the limbers are. These 



RELIEF ARRIVES 



49 



limbers have come up from about three to four 
miles away, from the Regimental Transport 
headquarters, to take all the trench *' props" 
back to the billets. 

We don't leave, ourselves, until the "in- 
coming" battalion has taken over. 

After what seems an interminable wait, we 
hear a clinking of mess-tins and rattling of 




equipment, the sloshing of feet in the mud, 
and much whispered profanity, which all goes 
to announce to you that ' ' they're here ! ' ' Then 
you know that the other battaHon has arrived, 
and are now about to take over these precious 
slots in the ground. 

When the exchange is complete, we are free 
to go! — to go out for our few days in billets! 

4 



50 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

The actual going out and getting clear of the 
trenches takes a long time. Handing over, 
and finally extricating ourselves from the morass 
in the dark, with all our belongings, is a lengthy- 
process; and then we have about a mile of coun- 
try which we have never been able to examine 
in the day time, and get familiar with, to nego- 
tiate. This is before we get to the high road, 
and really start for billets. 

I had the different machine-gun sections 
to collect from their various guns, and this 
not until the relieving sections had all turned 
up. It was a good two-hours* job getting all 
the sections with their guns, ammunition, and 
various extras finally collected together in the 
dark a mile back, ready to put all the stuff in 
the limbers, and so back to billets. When all 
was fixed up I gave the order and off we started, 
plodding along back down the narrow, dreary 
road towards our resting-place. But it was 
quite a cheerful tramp, knowing as we did that 
we were going to four days* comparative rest 
and, anyway, safety. 

On we went down the long, flat, narrow roads, 
occasionally looking round to see the faint 
flicker of a star shell showing over the tops of 



BILLETS 51 

the trees, and to think momentarily of the 
"poor devils" left behind to take our place, and 
go on doing just what we had been at. Then, 
finally, getting far enough away to forget, songs 
and jokes took us chirping along, past objects 
which soon became our landmarks in the days 
to come. 

On we went, past estaminets, shrines, and 
occasional windmills, down the long winding 
road for about four miles, until at last we 
reached our billets, where the battalion willingly 
halted and dispersed to its various quarters. 
I and my machine-gun section had still to carry 
on, for we lived apart, a bit further on, at the 
Transport Farm. So we continued on our own 
for another mile and a half, past the estaminet 
at Romerin, out on towards Neuve Eglise to our 
Transport Farm. This was the usual red-tiled 
Belgian farm, with a rectangular smell in the 
middle. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE TRANSPORT FARM — FLEECED BY THE FLEM- 
ISH — RIDING — NEARING CHRISTMAS 

It was about 9 p.m. when we turned into the 
courtyard of the farm. My sergeant saw to 
the unHmbering, and dismissed the section, 
whilst I went into the farm and dismantled 
myself of all my tackle, such as revolver, field- 
glass, greatcoat, haversacks, etc. 

My servant had, of course, preceded me, 
and by the time I had made a partial at- 
tempt at cleaning myself, he had brought 
in a meal of sorts and laid it on the oil- 
cloth-covered table by the stove. I was now 
joined by the transport officer and the regi- 
mental quartermaster. They lived at this 
farm permanently, and only came to the 
trenches on occasional excursions. They had 
both had a go at the nasty part of warfare 
though, before this, so although consumed 

52 



A GLORIOUS TIME 53 

with a sneaking envy, I was full of respect 
for them. 

We three had a very merry and genial time 
together. We now had something distinctly 
resembling a breakfast, a lunch, and a dinner, 
each day. The transport officer took a Hvely 
interest in the efforts of Messrs. Fortnum 
and Mason, and thus added generously to our 
menus. It was a glorious feeling, pushing 
open the door of that farm and coming in from 
all the wet, darkness, mud, and weariness of four 
days in the trenches. After the supper, I dis- 
appeared into the back kitchen place and did 
what was possible in the shaving and washing 
line. The Belgian family were all herded away 
in here, as their front rooms were now our ex- 
clusive property. T have never quite made out 
what the family consisted of, but, approximately 
I should think, mother and father and ten 
children. I am pretty certain about the chil- 
dren, as about half a platoon stood around me 
whilst shaving, and solemnly watched me with 
dull brown Flemish eyes. The father kept 
in the background, resting, I fancy, from his 
usual day's work of hiding unattractive turnips 
in enormous numbers, under mounds of mud— 



54 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

(the only form of farming industry which came 
under my notice in Flanders). 

The mother, however, was "all there," in 
more senses than one. She was of about obser- 
vation balloon proportions, and had an unerr- 
ing eye for the main chance. Her telegraphic 
address, I should imagine, was "Fleecem." 
She had one sound commercial idea, i. e,, 
*' charge as much as you can for everything they 
want, hide everything they do want, and slowly 
collect any property, in the way of food, they 
have in the cellar; so that, in the future, there 
shall be no lack of bully and jam in our farm, 
at any rate." 

They had one farm labourer, a kind of 
epileptic who, I found out, gave his services in 
return for being fed — no pay. He will regret 
this contract of his in time, as the food in ques- 
tion was bully beef and plum and apple jam, 
with an occasional change to Maconochie and 
apple and plum jam. That store in the cellar 
absolutely precludes him from any change from 
this diet for many years to come. Of course, 
I must say his work was not such as would be 
classed amongst the skilled or intellectual trades ; 
it was, apparently, to pump all the accumulated 



A STRAW-MATTRESS BED 



55 



drainage from a subterranean vault out into 
the yard in front, about twice a week, the rest 
of his time being taken up by assisting at the 
hiding of the turnips. 

After I had washed and shaved under the 
critical eyes of Angele, Rachel, Andre, and Co., 
I retired into an inner chamber which had once 
been an apple store, and went to bed on a straw 
mattress in the corner. Pyjamas at last! and 
an untrou- 
bled sleep. 
Occasion- 
ally in the 
night one 
would 
wake and, 
listen- 
ing at 
the open 
window 
would 

hear the distant rattle of rifle fire far away be- 
yond the woods. 

These four days at the Transport Farm were 
days of wallowing in rest. There was, of 
course, certain work to be done in connection 
with the machine-gun department, such as 




56 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

overhauling and cleaning the guns, and drilling 
the section at intervals; but the evenings and 
nights were a perfect joy after those spent in the 
trenches. 

One could walk about the fields near by; 
could read, write letters, and sleep as much 
as one Hked. And if one wished, walk or ride 
over to see friends at the other billets. Ah, 
yes ! ride — I am sorry to say that riding was not, 
and is not, my forte. Unfortunate this, as the 
machine-gun officer is one of the few privileged 
to have a horse. I was entitled to ride to the 
trenches, and ride away from them, and during 
our rest, ride wherever I wanted to go ; but these 
advantages, so coveted by my horseless pals in 
the regiment, left me cold. I never will be any 
good at the "Haute Ecole" act, I'm sure, 
although I made several attempts to get a 
liking for the subject in France. When 
the final day came for our departure to the 
trenches again, I rode from that Transport 
Farm. 

Riding in England, or in any civilized 
country, is one thing, and riding in those barren, 
shell-torn wastes of Flanders is another. The 
usual darkness, rain, and mud pervaded the 
scene when the evening came for our return 



RIDING 



57 



journey to the trenches. My groom (curse 
him) had not forgotten to saddle the horse 
and bring it round. There it was, standing 
gaunt and tall in front of the paraded machine- 
gun section. With my best equestrian de- 
meanour I crossed the yard, and hauling 
myself up on to my horse, choked out a few 
commands to the section, and sallied forth on 
to the road towards the trenches. 

Thank Heaven, I didn't go into the Cavalry. 
The roads 
about the 
part we were 
performing 
in were 
about two 
yards wide 
and a preci- 
pitous ditch 
at each side. 
In the middle, all sorts and conditions of holes 
punctuated their long winding length. Add 
to this the fact that you are either meeting, or 
being passed by, a motor lorry every ten minutes, 
and you will get an idea of the conditions under 
which riding takes place. 

Well, anyway, during the whole of my eques- 




58 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

trian career in France, I never came off. I 
rode along in front of my section, balancing 
on this "Ship of the Desert" of mine, past all 
the same landmarks, cracked houses, windmills, 
estaminets, etc. I experienced innumerable 
tense moments when my horse — as frequently 
happened — took me for a bit of a circular tour 
in an adjacent field, so as to avoid some 
colossal motor lorry with one headlight of 
about a million candle-power, which would 
suddenly roar its way down our single nar- 
row road. At last we got to the dumping- 
ground spot again — the spot where we horsemen 
have to come to earth and walk, and where 
everything is unbaled from the limbers. Here 
we were again, on the threshold of the 
trenches. 

This monotonous dreary routine of ''in** 
and "out" of the trenches had to be gone 
through many, many times before we got to 
Christmas Day. But, during that pre-Christ- 
mas period, there was one outstanding feature 
above the normal dangerous dreariness of the 
trenches: that was a slight affair in the nature 
of our attack on the i8th of December, so in the 
next chapter I will proceed to outline my part 
in this passage of arms. 




A HOPELESS DAWN 



::^v-.' 



CHAPTER VII 

A PROJECTED ATTACK — DIGGING A SAP — ^AN 'eLL 

OF A NIGHT — THE ATTACK — PUNCTURING 

PRUSSIANS 

NE evening I was sitting, coiled 
up in the slime at the bottom 
of my dug-out, toying with the 
mud enveloping my boots, when 
a head appeared at a gap in my 
mackintosh doorway and said, 
"The Colonel wants to see you, 
sir." So I clambered out and went across 
the field, down a trench, across a road, and 
down a trench again to where the headquarter 
dug-outs lay all in a row. 

I came to the Colonel's dug-out, where, by 
the light of a candle-end stuck on an improvised 
table, he was sitting, busily explaining some- 
thing by the aid of a map to a group of our 

officers. I waited till he had finished, knowing 

6i 




62 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

that he would want to see me after the others, 
as the machine-gunner's job is always rather a 
specialized side-Hne. Soon he explained to me 
what he wished me to do with my guns, and 
gave me a rough outline of the projected attack. 
He pointed out on the map where he wished me 
to take up positions, and closed the interview 
by saying that he thought I should at once 
proceed to reconnoitre the proposed sites, and 
lay all my plans for getting into position, as 
we were going to conduct an operation on the 
Boches at dawn the next day. 

I left, and started at once on my plans. 
The first thing was to have a thorough good look 
at the ground, and examine all the possibilities 
for effective machine-gun co-operation. I de- 
termined to take my sergeant along with me, 
so that he would be as familiar with the scheme 
in hand as I was. It was raining, of course, and 
the night was as black as pitch when we both 
started out on our Sherlock Holmes excursion. 
I explained the idea of the attack to him, and the 
part we had to play. The troops on our right 
were going to carry out the actual attack, and 
we, on their left flank, were going to lend assist- 
ance by engaging the Deutschers in front and by 



FIXING UP 



63 



firing half-right to cover our men*s advance. 
My job was clear enough. I had to bring as 
many machine guns as I could spare down 
to the right of our own line to assist as much 
as possible in the real attack. My sergeant 
and I went down to examine the ground where 
it was essen- 
tial for us to 
fix up. We 
got to our 
last trench 
on the right, 
and clam- 
bering over 
the parapet, 
did what we 
could to find 
out the na- 
ture of the 
ground in 
front, and 
see how we 
could best 
fix our machine guns to cover the enemy. We 
soon saw that in order to get a really clear field 
of fire it was necessary for us to sap out from the 




— .-» Tarn jdT alone 



64 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

end of our existing right-hand trench and make 
a machine-gun emplacement at the end. 

This necessitated the digging of a sap of 
about ten yards in length, collecting all the 
materials for making an emplacement, and 
mounting our machine gun. It was now about 
II P.M., and all this work had to be completed 
before dawn. 

Having rapidly realized that there was not 
the slightest prospect of any sleep, and that 
the morrow looked like being a busy day, we 
commenced with characteristic fed-up vigour 
to carry out our nefarious design. 

A section, myself, and the sergeant, started 
on digging that sap, and what a job it was! 
The Germans were particularly restless that 
night; kept on squibbing away whilst we were 
digging, and as it was some time before we had 
the sap deep enough to be able to stand upright 
without fear of a puncture in some part of our 
anatomy, it was altogether most unpleasant. 
At about an hour before dawn we had got 
as far as making the emplacement. This we 
started to put together as hard as we could. 
We filled sandbags with the earth excavated 
from the sap, and with frenzied energy tried to 



AN 'ELL OF A NIGHT 65 

complete our defences before dawn. The rain 
and darkness, both very intense that night, 
were really very trying. One would pause, 
shovel in hand, lean against the clay side of the 
sap, and hurriedly contemplate the scene. , Five 
men, a sergeant, and myself, wet through and 
muddy all over; no sleep, Httle to eat, silently 
digging and filling sandbags with an ever- watch- 
ful eye for the breaking of the dawn. 

Light was breaking across the sky before 
the job was done, and we had still to complete 
the top guard of our emplacement. Then we 
had some fireworks. The nervy Boches had 
spotted our sap as something new, and their 
bullets, whacking up against our newly-thrown- 
up parapet, made us glad we had worked so 
busily. 

We were boimd to complete that emplace- 
ment, so, at convenient intervals, we crept to 
the opening, and after saying "one, two, three!" 
suddenly plumped a newly-filled sandbag on the 
top. Each time we did this half a dozen bullets 
went zipping through the canvas or just past 
overhead. This operation had to be done about 
a dozen times. 

A warm job! At last it was finished, and 
5 



66 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

we sank down into the bottom of the sap to 
rest. The time for the artillery bombardment 
had been fixed to begin at about 6 a.m., if I 
remember rightly, so we got a little rest between 
finishing our work and the attack itself. 

Of course the whole of this enterprise, as 
far as the bombardment and attack were 
concerned, cannot be compared with the 
magnitude of a similar performance in 191 5. 
All the same, it was pretty bad, but not any- 
thing like so accurately calculated, or so me- 
chanically efficient as our later efforts in this 
line. The precise time-table methods of the 
present period did not exist then, but the main 
idea of giving the Opposition as much heavy 
lyddite, followed by shrapnel, was the same. 

At about half-past six, as we sat in the sap, 
we heard the first shell go over. I went to the 
end of the traverse alongside the emplacement, 
and watched the German trenches. We were 
ready to fire at any of the enemy we could see, 
and when the actual attack started, at the end 
of the bombardment, we were going to keep up a 
perpetual sprinkling of bullets along their re- 
serve trenches. A few isolated houses stood 
just in line with the German trenches. Our 



THE ATTACK 67 

gunners had focussed on these, and they gave 
them a good pasting. 

"Crumph! bang! bang! crumph!"-— hard 
at it all the time, whilst shrapnel burst and 
whizzed about all along the German parapet. 
The view in front soon became a sort of haze 
of black dust, as "heavy" after "heavy" burst 
on top of the Boche positions. Columns of 
earth and black smoke shot up like giant foun- 
tains into the air. I caught sight of a lot of the 
enemy running along a shallow communication 
trench of theirs, apparently with the intention 
of reinforcing their front line. We soon had oiu* 
machine gun peppering up these unfortunates, 
and from that moment on kept up an incessant 
fire on the enemy. 

On my left, two of our companies were keep- 
ing up a solid rapid fire on the German lines 
immediately in front. 

At last the bombardment ceased. A con- 
fused sound of shouts and yells on our right, 
intermingled with a terrific crackle of rifle fire, 
told us the attack had started. Without ceas- 
ing, we kept up the only assistance we could 
give: our persistent firing half -right. 

How long it all lasted I can*t remember; 



68 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

but when I crept into a soldier's dug-out, 
back in one of our trenches, completely ex- 
hausted, I heard that we had taken the enemy 
trench, but that, unfortunately, owing to its 
enfiladed position, we had to abandon it later. 

Such was my first experience of this see-saw 
warfare of the trenches. 

A few days later, as I happened to be passing 
through poor, shattered Plugstreet Wood, I 
came across a clearance 'midst the trees. 

Two rows of long, brown mounds of earthy 
each surmounted by a rough, simple wooden 
cross, was all that was inside the clearing. I 
stopped, and looked, and thought — then went 
away. 



CHAPTER VIII 

CHRISTMAS EVE — ^A LULL IN HATE — BRITON CUM 
BOCHE 

Shortly after the doings set forth in the pre- 
vious chapter we left the trenches for our 
usual days in billets. It was now nearing Christ- 
mas Day, and we knew it would fall to our lot 
to be back in the trenches again on the 23rd of 
December, and that we would, in consequence, 
spend our Christmas there. I remember at the 
time being very down on my luck about this, as 
anything in the nature of Christmas Day fes- 
tivities was obviously knocked on the head. 
Now, however, looking back on it all, I wouldn't 
have missed that imique and weird Christmas 
Day for anything. 

Well, as I said before, we went "in" again 
on the 23rd. The weather had now become 
very fine and cold. The dawn of the 24th 

brought a perfectly still, cold, frosty day. 

69 



70 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

The spirit of Christmas began to permeate 
us all ; we tried to plot ways and means of mak- 
ing the next day, Christmas, different in some 
way to others. Invitations from one dug-out 
to another for sundry meals were beginning to 
circulate. Christmas Eve was, in the way of 
weather, everything that Christmas Eve should 
be. 

I was billed to appear at a dug-out about a 
quarter of a mile to the left that evening to have 
rather a special thing in trench dinners — not 
quite so much bully and Maconochie about as 
usual. A bottle of red wine and a medley of 
tinned things from home deputized in their 
absence. The day had been entirely free from 
shelling, and somehow we aU felt that the Boches, 
too, wanted to be quiet. There was a kind of 
an invisible, intangible feeling extending across 
the frozen swamp between the two lines, which 
said "This is Christmas Eve for both of us — 
something in common. " 

About 10 P.M. I made my exit from the 
convivial dug-out on the left of our line and 
walked back to my own lair. On arriving at 
my own bit of trench I found several of the men 
standing about, and all very cheerful. There 



CHRISTMAS EVE 



71 



was a good bit of singing and talking going on, 
jokes and jibes on our curious Christmas Eve, as 
contrasted with any former one, were thick in 
the air. One of my men turned to me and said: 

"You can *ear *em quite plain, sir!" 

*'Hear what?'* I inquired. 

**The Germans over there, sir; you can 
'ear *em singin' and playin* on a 
band or somethin'. " 

I listened; — away out across the 
field, among the dark shadows be- 
yond, I could hear the "murmur 
of voices, and an occasional burst 
of some unintelligible song would 
come floating out on the frosty air. 
The singing seemed to be loudest 
and most distinct a bit to our right. 
I popped into my dug-out and 
found the platoon commander. 

*' Do you hear the Boches kicking 
up that racket over there?" I said. 

"Yes," he replied; "theyVe been at it 
some time!" 

"Come on," said I, "let's go along the 
trench to the hedge there on the right — that's 
the nearest point to them, over there. " 




^2 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

So we stumbled along our now hard, frosted 
ditch, and scrambling up on to the bank above, 
strode across the field to our next bit of trench 
on the right. Everyone was listening. An im- 
provised Boche band was playing a precarious 
version of " Deutschland, Deutschland, uber 
Alles, " at the conclusion of which, some of our 
mouth-organ experts retaliated with snatches 
of ragtime songs and imitations of the German 
tune. Suddenly we heard a confused shouting 
from the other side. We all stopped to listen. 
The shout came again. A voice in the dark- 
ness shouted in English, with a strong German 
accent, "Come over here!" A ripple of mirth 
swept along our trench, followed by a rude out- 
burst of mouth organs and laughter. Presently, 
in a lull, one of our sergeants repeated the re- 
quest, "Come over here!" 

"You come half-way — I come half-way," 
floated out of the darkness. 

"Come on, then!" shouted the sergeant. 
"I'm coming along the hedge!" 

"Ah! but there are two of you," came back 
the voice from the other side. 

Well, anyway, after much suspicious shout- 
ing and jocular derision from both sides, our 



A LULL IN HATE 73 

sergeant went along the hedge which ran at 
right-angles to the two lines of trenches. He 
was quickly out of sight; but, as we all listened 
in breathless silence, we soon heard a spasmodic 
conversation taking place out there in the 
darkness. 

Presently, the sergeant returned. He had 
with him a few German cigars and cigarettes 
which he had exchanged for a couple of Macono- 
chies and a tin of Capstan, which he had taken 
v/ith him. The seance was over, but it had 
given just the requisite touch to our Christmas 
Eve — something a little human and out of the 
ordinary routine. 

After months of vindictive sniping and 
shelling, this little episode came as an invigor- 
ating tonic, and a welcome relief to the daily 
monotony of antagonism. It did not lessen our 
ardour or determination; but just put a little 
human punctuation mark in our lives of cold 
and humid hate. Just on the right day, too — 
Christmas Eve! But, as a curious episode, this 
was nothing in comparison to our experience 
on the following day. 

On Christmas morning I awoke very early, 
and emerged from my dug-out into the trench. 



74 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

It was a perfect day. A beautiful, cloudless 
blue sky. The ground hard and white, fading 
off towards the wood in a thin low-lying mist. 
It was such a day as is invariably depicted by 
artists on Christmas cards — the ideal Christ- 
mas Day of fiction. 

"Fancy all this hate, war, and discomfort 
on a day like this!** I thought to myself. The 
whole spirit of Christmas seemed to be there, 
so much so that I remember thinking, "This 
indescribable something in the air, this Peace 
and Goodwill feeling, surely will have some 
effect on the situation here to-day!'* And I 
wasn't far wrong ; it did around us, anyway, and 
I have always been so glad to think of my luck 
in, firstly, being actually in the trenches on 
Christmas Day, and, secondly, being on the 
spot where quite a unique little episode took 
place. 

Everything looked merry and bright that 
morning — the discomforts seemed to be less, 
somehow; they seemed to have epitomized 
themselves in intense, frosty cold. It was just 
the sort of day for Peace to be declared. It 
would have made such a good finale. I should 
like to have suddenly heard an immense siren 




A MEMORY OF CHRISTMAS, I9I4: LOOK AT THIS BLOKE S BUTTONS, ARRY; 



BRITON CUM BOCHE 75 

blowing. Everybody to stop and say, "What 
was that?" Siren blowing again: appearance 
of a small figure running across the frozen mud 
waving something. He gets closer — a telegraph 
boy with a wire! He hands it to me. With 
trembling fingers I open it: **War off, return 
home.— George, R.I." Cheers! But no, it 
was a nice, fine day, that was all. 

Walking about the trench a little later, 
discussing the curious affair of the night before, 
we suddenly became aware of the fact that we 
were seeing a lot of evidences of Germans. 
Heads were bobbing about and showing over 
their parapet in a most reckless way, and, as 
we looked, this phenomenon became more and 
more pronounced. 

A complete Boche figure suddenly appeared 
on the parapet, and looked about itself. This 
complaint became infectious. It didn*t take 
*'Our Bert" long to be up on the skyline (it is 
one long grind to ever keep him off it). This 
was the signal for more Boche anatomy to be 
disclosed, and this was replied to by all our 
Alf's and Bill's, until, in less time than it 
takes to tell, half a dozen or so of each of the 
belligerents were outside their trenches and 



76 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

were advancing towards each other in no- 
man's land. 

A strange sight, truly! 

I clambered up and over our parapet, and 
moved out across the field to look. Clad in a 
muddy suit of khaki and wearing a sheepskin 
coat and Balaclava helmet, I joined the throng 
about half-way across to the German trenches. 

It all felt most curious: here were these 
sausage-eating wretches, who had elected to 
start this infernal European fracas, and in so 
doing had brought us all into the same muddy 
pickle as themselves. 

This was my first real sight of them at close 
quarters. Here they were — the actual, prac- 
tical soldiers of the German army. There v/as 
not an atom of hate on either side that day; 
and yet, on our side, not for a moment was the 
will to war and the will to beat them relaxed. 
It was just like the interval between the rounds 
in a friendly boxing match. The difference in 
type between our men and theirs was very 
marked. There was no contrasting the spirit 
of the two parties. Our men, in their scratch 
costumes of dirty, muddy khaki, with their 
various assorted head-dresses of woollen hel- 



IMPRESSIONS 79 

mets, mufflers, and battered hats, were a light- 
hearted, open, humorous collection as opposed 
to the sombre demeanour and stolid appearance 
of the Huns in their grey-green faded uniforms, 
top boots, and pork-pie hats. 

The shortest effect I can give of the impres- 
sion I had was that our men, superior, broad- 
minded, more frank, and lovable beings, were 
regarding these faded, unimaginative products 
of perverted kulture as a set of objectionable 
but amusing lunatics whose heads had got to 
be eventually smacked. 

"Look at that one over there, Bill," our 
Bert would say, as he pointed out some par- 
ticularly curious member of the party. 

I strolled about amongst them all, and sucked 
in as many impressions as I could. Two or 
three of the Boches seemed to be particularly 
interested in me, and after they had walked 
round me once or twice with sullen curiosity 
stamped on their faces, one came up and said 
*'Offizier?" I nodded my head, which means 
*'Yes" in most languages, and, be^des, I can't 
talk German. ^- 

These devils, I could see, all wanted to be 
friendly; but none of them possessed the open, 



8o BULLETS AND BILLETS 

frank geniality of our men. However, every- 
one was talking and laughing, and souvenir 
hunting. 

I spotted a German officer, some sort of 
lieutenant I should think, and being a bit of a 
collector, I intimated to him that I had taken 
a fancy to some of his buttons. 

We both then said things to each other which 
neither understood, and agreed to do a swap. 
I brought out my wire clippers and, with a few 
deft snips, removed a couple of his buttons and 
put them in my pocket. I then gave him two 
of mine in exchange. 

_^ Whilst this was going on a babbling of gut- 
tural ejaculations emanating from one of the 
laager-schifters, told me that some idea had 
occurred to someone. 

Suddenly, one of the Boches ran back to 
his trench and presently reappeared with a 
large camera. I posed in a mixed group for 
several photographs, and have ever since wished 
I had fixed up some arrangement for getting a 
copy. No doubt framed editions of this photo- 
graph are reposing on some Hun mantelpieces, 
showing clearly and immistakably to admiring 
strafers how a group of perfidious English 



CUTTING THE HUN'S HAIR 8i 

surrendered unconditionally on Christmas Day 
to the brave Deutschers. 

Slowly the meeting began to disperse; a 
sort of feeling that the authorities on both sides 
were not very enthusiastic about this fraterniz- 
ing seemed to creep across the gathering. We 
parted, but there was a distinct and friendly 
understanding that Christmas Day would be 
left to finish in tranquilhty. The last I saw of 
this httle affair was a vision of one of my ma- 
chine gunners, who was a bit of an amateur 
hairdresser in civil life, cutting the unnaturally 
long hair of a docile Boche, who was patiently 
kneeling on the ground whilst the automatic 
clippers crept up the back of his neck. 



CHAPTER IX 

SOUVENIRS — A RIDE TO NIEPPE — TEA AT H.Q.— 
TRENCHES ONCE MORE 

A COUPLE of days after Christmas we left for 
billets. These two days were of a very peaceful 
nature, but not quite so enthusiastically friendly 
as the day itself. The Germans could be seen 
moving about in their trenches, and one felt 
quite at ease sitting on the top of our parapet 
or strolling about the fields behind our lines. 

It was during these two days that I managed 
to get a German rifle that I had had my eye on 
for a month. It lay out in the open, near one or 
two corpses between our trenches and theirs, 
and until this Christmas truce arrived, the 
locality was not a particularly attractive one to 
visit. Had I fixed an earlier date for my exploit 
the end of it would most probably have been — a 
battered second-lieutenant's cap and a rusty 
revolver hanging up in the ingle-nook at Herr 



BACK TO REST 83 

Someone-or-other's country home in East Prus- 
sia. As it was, I was able to walk out and re- 
turn with the rifle unmolested. 

When we left the trenches to "go out" this 
time I took the rifle along with me. After my 
usual perilous equestrian act I got back to the 
Transport Farm, and having performed the 
usual routine of washing, shaving, eating, and 
drinking, blossomed forth into our four days^ 
rest again. 

The weather was splendid. I went out for 
walks in the fields, rehearsed the machine-gun 
section in their drill, and conducted cheery 
sort of *'Squire-of-the-village" conversations 
with the farmer who owned our farm. 

At this period, most of my pals in the regi- 
ment used to go into Armentieres or Bailleul, 
and get a breath of civiHzed Hf e. I often wished 
I felt as they did, but I had just the opposite 
desire. I felt that, to adequately stick out 
what we were going through, it was necessary 
for me to keep well in the atmosphere, and not to 
let any exterior influence upset it. 

I was annoyed at having to take up this Hne, 
but somehow or other I had a feeling that I 
could not run the war business with a spot of 



84 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

civilization in it. Personally, I felt that, rather 
than leave the trenches for our periodic rests, 
I would sooner have stayed there all the time 
consecutively, until I could stick it out no 
longer. 

During this after-Christmas rest, however, I 
so far relapsed from these views as to decide 
to go into Nieppe to get some money from the 
Field Cashier. That was my first fall, but my 
second was even more strange. In a truculent 
tone I said I would ride ! 

''Smith, go and tell Parker to get my horse 
ready!" It just shows how reckless warfare 
makes one. 

A beautiful, fine, still afternoon. I started 
off. Enormous success. I walked and trotted 
along, past all sorts of wagons, lorries, guns, and 
despatch riders. Nearly decided to take up 
hunting, when the time came for me to settle in 
England once more. However, as I neared the 
outskirts of Nieppe, and saw the flood of inter- 
lacing traffic, I decided to leave well alone — to 
tie this quadruped of mine up at some outlying 
hostelry and walk the short remaining distance 
into the town where the cashier had his ofBce. 
I found a suitable place and, letting myself 



AT NIEPPE 85 

down to the ground, strode off with a stiff 
bandy-legged action to the office. Having got 
my 100 francs all right I made the best of my 
short time on earth by walking about and having 
a good look at the town. A squalid, uninterest- 
ing place, Nieppe; a dirty red-brick town with 
a good sprinkling of factory chimneys and 
orange peel; rather the same tone as one of the 
Potteries towns in England. Completing my 
tour I returned to the horse, and finally, stiff 
but happy, I glided to the ground in the yard of 
the Transport Farm. 

Encouraged by my success I rode over to 
dinner one night with one of the Companies 
in the Battalion which was in billets about a 
mile and a half away. Riding home along the 
flat, winding, water-logged lane by the light of 
the stars I nearly started off on the poetry lines 
again, but I got home just in time. 

During these rests from the trenches I was 
sometimes summoned to Brigade Headquarters, 
where the arch machine gunner dwelt. He was 
a captain of much engineering skill, who super- 
vised the entire machine-gun outfit of the Bri- 
gade. New men were being perpetually trained 
by him, and I was sent for on occasion to dis- 



86 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

cuss the state and strength of my section, or 
any new scheme that might be on hand'. 

This going to Brigade Headquarters meant 
putting on a clean bib, as it were; for it was 
here that the Brigadier himself lived, and after 
a machine-gun seance it was generally necessary 
to have tea in the farm with the Brigade staff. 

I am little or no use on these social occasions. 
The red and gold mailed fist of a General Staff 
reduces me to a sort of pulverized state of meek- 
ness, which ends in my smiling at everyone and 
declining anything to eat. 

As machine-gun officer to our Battalion I 
had to go through it, and as everyone was very 
nice to me, it all went off satisfactorily. 

On this time out we were wondering how we 
should find the Boches on our return, and 
pleasant recollections of the time before filled 
us with a curious keenness to get back and see. 
A wish Hke this is easily gratified at the front 
and soon, of course, the day came to go into 
trenches again, and in we went. 



CHAPTER X 

MY PARTIAL ESCAPE FROM THE MUD — THE DE- 
SERTED VILLAGE — ^MY " COTTAGE" 

Our next time up after our Christmas Day 
experiences were full of incident and adventure. 
During the peace which came upon the land 
around the 25th of December we had, as I 
mentioned before, been able to stroll about in 
an altogether unprecedented way. We had 
had the courage to walk into the mangled old 
village just behind our front line trenches, and 
examine the ruins. I had never penetrated into 
this gloomy wreck of a place, even at night, un- 
til after Christmas. It had just occasionally 
caught our attention as we looked back from 
our trenches; mutilated and deserted, a dirty 
skeleton of what once had been a small village — 
very small — about twelve small houses and a 
couple of farms. Anyway, during this time in 
after Christmas we started thinking out plans 

87 



88 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

and in a few days we heard that it had been 
decided to put some men into the village, and 
hold it, as a second line. 

The platoon commander with whom I lived 
happened to be the man selected to have charge 
of the men in the village. Consequently one 
night he left our humble trench and, together 
with his servant and small belongings from the 
dug-out, went off to live somewhere in the 
village. 

About this time the conditions under which 
we lived were very poor. The cold and rain 
were exceedingly severe, and altogether physical 
discomfort was at its height. When my stable 
companion had gone I naturally determined to 
pay him a call the next night, and to see what 
sort of a place he had managed to get to live in. 
I well remember that next night. It was the 
first on which I realized the chances of a change 
of life presented by the village, and this was the 
start of two months* "village" life for me. I 
went off from our old trench after dusk on 
my usual round of the machine guns. When 
this was over I struck off back across the field 
behind our trench to the village, and waded up 
what had been the one and only street. Out of 



THE DESERTED VILLAGE 89 

the dozen mangled wrecks of houses I didn't 
know which one my pal had chosen as his resi- 
dence, so I went along the shell-mutilated, 
water-logged road, peering into this ruin and 
that, until, at the end of the street, about four 
himdred yards from the Germans and two hun- 
dred yards from our own trenches, I came across 
a damp and dark figure lurking in the shadows: 
^'*Alt! '00 goes there?" "Friend!" 'Tass, 
friend, all's well." The sentry, evidently 
posted at end of village. 

I got a tip from him as to my friend's new 
dwelling-place. **I say. Sentry, which house 
does Mr. Hudson live in?" "That small 'un 
down t'other end on the left, sir. " "Thanks. " 
I vrent back along the deserted ruin of a street, 
and at the far end on the left I saw the dim out- 
line of a small cottage, almost intact it appeared, 
standing about five yards back from the road. 
This was the place the sentry meant right 
enough, and in I went at the hole in the plaster 
wall. The front door having apparently stopped 
something or other previously, was conspicuous 
by its absence. 

An was dark. I groped my way along 
round to the back, stumbling over various 



90 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

bits of debris on the ground, until I found the 
opening into what must be the room where 
Hudson had elected to live. Not a light showed 
anywhere, which was as it should be, for a light 
would be easily seen by the Boches not far 
away, and if they did see one there would be 
trouble. 

I came to an opening covered with an old 

sack. 
Pulling 
this a 
little to 
one side 
I was 
greeted 
with a 
fy { ^ i V\\ "V*.,^ volume 

Savwi(7v\)ts k£u Av -^ ofsuffo- 

Qti!^^ t-tavk^H ^Jtj^^ eating 

^ '. smoke. 
I proceeded further, and diving in under the 
sack, got inside the room. In the midst of the 
smoke, sitting beside a crushed and battered 
fire-bucket, sat a man, his face illuminated by 
the flickering light from the fire. The rest of 
the room was bathed in mysterious darkness. 




MY '' COTTAGE " 91 

"Whereas Mr. Hudson?" I asked. "He's out 
havin' a look at the barbed wire in front of the 
village, I think, sir; but he'll be back soon, as 
this is where 'e stays now. " I determined to 
wait, and, to fill in the time, started to examine 
the cottage. 

It was the first house I had been into in the 
firing line, and, unsavoury wreck of a place as it 
was, it gave one a delightful feeling of comfort 
to sit on the stone-flagged floor and look upon 
four perforated walls and a shattered roof. 
The worst possible house in the world would be 
an improvement on any of those dug-outs we 
had m the trenches. The front room had been 
blown away, leaving a back room and a couple 
of lean-tos which opened out from it. An 
attic under the thatched roof with all one end 
knocked out completed the outfit. The outer 
and inner walls were all made of that stuff 
known as wattle and daub — sort of earth-like 
plaster worked into and around hurdles. A 
bullet would, of course, go through walls of this 
sort like butter, and so they had. For, on 
examining the outer wall on the side which 
faced the Germans, I found it looking like the 
top of a pepper-pot for holes. 



92 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

A sound as of a man trying to waltz with 
a cream separator, suggested to my mind that 
someone had tripped and fallen over that 
mysterious obstacle outside, which I had noticed 
on entering, and presently I heard Hudson's 
voice cursing through the sack doorway. 

He came in and saw me examining the place. 
*' Hullo, youVe here too, are you? " he exclaimed. 
"Are you going to stay here as well?" 

"I don't quite know yet," I replied. "It 
doesn't seem a bad idea, as I have to walk the 
round of all the guns the whole time; all I can 
and have to do is to hitch up in some central 
place, and this is just as central as that rotten 
trench we've just come from." 

"Of course it is," he replied. "If I were 
you I'd come along and stay with me, and go to 
all your places from here. If an attack comes 
you'll be able to get from one place to another 
much easier than if you were stuck in that 
trench. You'd never be able to move from 
there when an attack and bombardment had 
started. " 

Having given the matter a little further con- 
sideration I decided to move from my dug-out 
to this cottage, so I left the village and went 



MOVING IN 93 

back across the field to the trench to see to the 
necessary arrangements. 

I got back to my lair and shouted for my 
servant. "Here, Smith," I said, "I*m going 
to fix up at one of the houses in the village. 
This place of ours here is no more central than 
the village, and any one of those houses is a 
damn sight better than this clay hole here. I 
want you to collect all my stuff and bring it 
along; 1*11 show you the way." So presently, 
all my few belongings having been collected, 
we set out for the village. That was my last 
of that fearful trench. A worse one I know could 
not be found. My new life in the village now 
started, and I soon saw that it had its advan- 
tages. For instance, there was a slight chance 
of fencing off some of the rain and water. But 
my knowledge of *' front" by this time was such 
that I knew there were corresponding disad- 
vantages, and my instinct told me that the 
village would present a fresh crop of dangers and 
troubles quite equal to those of the trench, 
though slightly different in style. I had now 
started off on my two months* sojourn in the 
village of St. Yvon. 



CHAPTER XI 

STOCKTAKING — FORTIFYING — NEBULOUS 
FRAGMENTS 

Hudson, myself, his servant, and my servant, 
all crushed into that house that night. What 
a relief it was! We all slept in our great- 
coats on the floor, which was as hard as most 
floors are, and dirtier than the generality; but 
being out of the water and able to stretch one- 
self at full length made up for all deficiencies. 
Hudson and I both slept in the perforated room; 
the servants in the larger chamber, near the 
fire-bucket. 

I got up just before dawn as usual, and taking 
advantage of the grey light, stole about the 
village and around the house, sizing up the 
locality and seeing how my position stood with 
regard to the various machine-gun emplace- 
ments. The dawn breaking, I had to skunk 
back into the house again, as it was imperative 

94 



-.^t^i 



'\ 








7 / 


v-*- 

'. >..' 


"" c 




t\% 


: f 


rv 


\ 


\ 




f 

1 s 



*'CHUCK US THE BISCUITS, BILL, THE FIRE WANTS MENDIN 



FORTIFYING 97 

for us to keep up the effect of *' Deserted house 
in village. ** We had to lurk inside all day, or 
if we went out, creep about with enormous 
caution, and go off down a slight slope at the 
back until we got to the edge of the wood which 
we knew must be invisible to the enemy. I 
spent this day making a thorough investigation 
of the house, creeping about all its component 
parts and thinking out how we cotild best utilize 
its little advantages. Hudson had crept out to 
examine the village by stealth, and I went on 
with plots for fortifying the "castle," and for 
being able to make otirselves as snug as we could 
in this frail shell of a cottage. I foimd a hole 
in the floor boards of the attic and pulled myself 
up into it thereby. 

This attic, as I have said before, had all one 
end blown away, but the two sloping thatched 
sides remained. I cut a hole in one of these 
with my pocket-knife, and thus obtained a view 
of the German trenches without committing 
the error of looking out through the blown-out 
end, which would have clearly shown an ob- 
server that the house was occupied. Looking 
out through the slit I had made I obtained a 
panoramic view, more or less, of the German 



98 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

trenches and our own. The view, in short, was 
this : One saw the backs of our own trenches, then 
the "No man's land" space of ground, and be- 
yond that again the front of the German trenches. 
This is best explained by the sketch map which 
I give on the opposite page. I saw exactly 
how the house stood with regard to the position, 
and also noticed that it had two dangerous 
sides, i, e., two sides which faced the Germans, 
as our position formed two sides of a triangle. 

I then proceeded to explore the house. In 
the walls I found a great many bullets which 
had stuck in between the bricks of the solitary 
chimney or imbedded themselves in the wood- 
work of the door or supporting posts at the 
comers. Amongst the straw in the attic I 

found a typical se- 
lection of pathetic 
little trifles : two 
pairs of very tiny 
clogs, evidently be- 
longing to some child 
about four or five 
years old, one or two 
old and battered 
^^ hats, and a quantity 




THE ONLY SOUVENIR 



99 



of spinning material and instruments. I have 
the small clogs at my home now, the only sou- 
venir I have of that house at St. Yvon, which 
I have since learned is no more, the Germans 




ScChC of rnj 



«utier< urC met' and « 

TUKftl *unK"Tr;tfhl-falTVih^ 
Vrt^t*^al t^eaTlch" ort 



wat«"» iofj44 "^"'^ f'*^**- 








VtMlCd . 



"OCT 



Hi* dur-04d: under 



having reduced it to a powdered-up mound of 
brick-dust and charred straw. Outside, and 
lying all around, were a miscellaneous collection 
of goods. Half a sewing machine, a gaudy 
cheap metal clock, a sort of mangle with 



100 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

strange wooden blades (which I subsequently 
cut off to make shelves with), and a host of 
other dirty, rain-soaked odds and ends. 

Having concluded my examination I crept 
out back to the wood and took a look at it 
all from there. "Yes," I thought to myself, 
"it's all very nice, but, by Gad, we'll have to 
look out that they don't see us, and get to think 
we're in this village, or they'll give us a warm 
time." It had gone very much against my 
thought-out views on trench warfare, coming to 
this house at all, for I had learned by the expe- 
riences of others that the best maxim to remem- 
ber was "Don't live in a house. " 

The reason is not far to seek. There is 
something very attractive to artillery about 
houses. They can range on them well, and 
they afford a more definite target than an open 
trench. Besides, if you can spot a house that 
contains, say, half a dozen to a dozen people, and 
just plop a "Johnson" right amidships, it 
generally means "exit house and people," 
which, I suppose, is a desirable object to 
be attained, according to twentieth century 
manners. 

However, we had decided to live in the house, 



AN EMERGENCY EXIT loi 

but as I crept back from the wood, I determined 
to take a few elementary and common-sense 
precautions. Hudson had returned when I 
got back, and together we discussed the house, 
the position, and everything we could think of 
in connection with the business, as we sat on the 
floor and had our midday meal of bully beef 
and biscuits, rounded up by tea and plum and 
apple jam spread neat from the tin on odd cor- 
ners of broken biscuits. We thoroughly talked 
over the question of possible fortifications and 
precautions. I said, "What we really want is 
an emergency exit somewhere, where we can 
stand a Httle chance, if they start to shell us. '* 

He agreed, and we both decided to pile up 
all the odd bricks, which were lying outside 
at the back of the house, against the perforated 
wall, and then sleep there in a Httle easier state 
of mind. We contented ourselves with this 
Httle precaution to begin with, but later on, as 
we Hved in that house, we thought of larger 
and better ideas, and launched out into all sorts 
of elaborate schemes, as I wiU show when the 

time comes. 

Anyway, for the first couple of sessions spent 
in that house in St. Yvon, we were content 



102 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

with merely making ourselves bullet proof. 
The whole day had to be spent with great 
caution indoors; any visit elsewhere had to be 
conducted with still greater caution, as the one 
great thing to be remembered was "Don't let 
'em see we're in the village. " So we had long 
days, just lying around in the dirty old straw 
and accumulated dirt of the cottage floor. 

We both sat and talked and read a bit, 
sometimes slept, and through the opening be- 
neath the sack across the back door we watched 
the evenings creeping on, and finally came the 
night, when we stole out like vampires and went 
about our trench work. It was during these 
long, sad days that my mind suddenly turned 
on making sketches. This period of my trench 
life marked the start of Fragments from France ^ 
though it was not till the end of February 
that a complete and presentable effort, suitable 
for publication in a paper, emerged. It was 
nothing new to me to draw, as for a very long 
time before the war I had drawn hundreds of 
sketches, and had spent a great amount of time 
reading and learning about all kinds of drawing 
and painting. I have always had an enormous 
interest in Art; my room at home will prove 



"FRAGMENTS" 103 

that to anyone. Stacks of bygone efforts of 
mine will also bear testimony to this. Yet it 
was not until January, 191 5, that I had suffi- 
ciently resigned myself to my fate in the war, to 
let my mind turn to my only and most treasured 
hobby. In this cottage at St. Yvon the craving 
came back to me. I didn't fight against it, and 
began by making a few pencil scribbles with 
a joke attached, and pinned them up in our 
cracked shell of a room. Jokes at the expense 
of our miserable surroundings they were, and 
these were the first ' ' Fragments. ' ' Several men 
in the local platoon collared these spasms, and 
soon after I came across them, muddy and 
battered, in various dug-outs near by. After 
these few sketches, which were done on rough 
bits of paper which I found lying about, I started 
to operate on the walls. With some bits of 
charcoal, I made a mess on all the four walls 
of our back room. There was a large circular 
gash, made by a spent bullet I fancy, on one 
of the walls, and by making it appear as though 
this mark was the centre point of a large ex- 
plosion, I gave an apparent velocity to the figure 
of a German, which I drew above. 

These daubs of mine provoked mirth to 



104 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

those who lived with me, and others who occa- 
sionally paid us visits. I persisted, and the 
next "masterpiece" was the figure of a soldier 
(afterwards Private Blobs, of "Fragments") 
sitting up a tree staring straight in front of 
him into the future, whilst a party of corpulent 
Boches are stalking towards him through the 
long grass and barbed wire. He knows there's 
something not quite nice going on, but doesn't 
like to look down. This was called "The 
Listening Post," and the sensation described 
was so familiar to most that this again was 
apparently a success. So what with scribbling, 
reading, and sleeping, not to mention time occu- 
pied in consuming plum and apple jam, bully, 
and other delicacies which a grateful country 
has ordained as the proper food for soldiers, we 
managed to pull through our days. Two doses 
of the trenches were done like this, and then 
came the third time up, when a sudden burst of 
enthusiasm and an increasing nervousness as 
to the safety of ourselves and our house, caused 
us to launch out into really trying to fortify the 
place. The cause of this decision to do some- 
thing to our abode was, I think, attributable 
to the fact that for about a fortnight the Ger- 



DEFENDING OURSELVES 105 

mans had taken to treating us to a couple of 
dozen explosions each morning — the sort of 
thing one doesn't like just before breakfast; but 
if youVe got to have it, the thing obviously to 
do is to try and defend yourself; so the next time, 
up we started. 



CHAPTER XII 



A BRAIN WAVE — ^MAKING A *'fUNK HOLE" 
— PLUGSTREET WOOD — SNIPING 



On arriving up at St. Yvon for our third time 

round there, we — as usual now — went into our 

cottage again, and the regiment spread itself 

out around the same old trenches. There was 

always a lot of work for me to do at nights, as 

machine guns always have to be moved as 

occasion arises, or if one gets a better idea for 

their position. By this time I had one gun in 

the remnant of a house about fifty yards away 

from our cottage. This was a reserve gun, and 

was there carrying out an idea of mine, i.e,, that 

it was in a central position, which would enable 

it to be rapidly moved to any threatened part of 

the line, and also it would form a bit of an asset 

in the event of our having to defend the village. 

The section for this gun lived in the old cellar 

close by, and it was this cellar which gave 

io6 



MAKING A "FUNK HOLE" 107 

me an idea. When I went into our cottage I 
searched to see if we had overlooked a cellar. 
No, there wasn't one. Now, then, the idea. 
I thought, "Why not make a cellar, and thus 
have a place to dive into when the strafing be- 
gins." After this terrific outburst of sagacity 
I sat down in a comer and, with a biscuit-load 
of jam, discussed my scheme with my platoon- 
commander pal. We agreed it was a good idea. 
I was feeling energetic, and always liking a Httle 
tinkering on my own, I said I would make it 

myself. 

So Hudson retired into the lean-to and I 
commenced to plot this engineering project. 
I scraped away as much as necessary of the 
accumulated filth on the floor, and my knife 
striking something hard I found it to be tiles. 
Up till then I had always imagined it to be an 
earth floor, but tiled it was right enough— large, 
square, dark red ones of a very rough kind. 
I called for Smith, my servant, and telling him 
to bring his entrenching tool, I began to prize 
up some of the tiles. It wasn't very easy, fitting 
the blade of the entrenching tool into the cre- 
vices, but once I had got a start and had got one 
or two out, things were easier. 



lo8 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

I pulled up all the tiles along one wall about 
eight feet long and out into the room a distance 
of about fotu" feet. I now had a bare patch of 
hard earth eight feet by four to contend with. 
Luckily we had a pickaxe and a shovel lying out 
behind the house, so taking off my sheepskin 
jacket and balaclava, I started off to excavate 
the hole which I proposed should form a sort of 
cellar. 

It was a big job, and my servant and I were 
hard at it, turn and turn about, the whole of 
that day. A dull, rainy day, a cold wind blow- 
ing the old sack about in the doorway, and in the 
semi-darkness inside yours truly handing up 
Belgian soil on a war-worn shovel to my servant, 
who held a sandbag perpetually open to receive 
it. A long and arduous job it was, and one in 
which I was precious near thinking that danger 
is preferable to digging. Mr. Doan, with his 
backache pills, would have done well if he had 
sent one of his travellers with samples round 
there that night. However, at the end of two 
days, I had got a really good hole delved out, 
and now I was getting near the more interesting 
feature, namely, putting a roof on, and finally 
being able to live in this underground dug-out. 



A UNIQUE ROOF 109 

This roof was perhaps rather unique as roofs 
go. It was a large mattress with wooden sides, 
a kind of oblong box with a mattress top. I 
found it outside in a ruined cottage. Under- 
neath the mattress part was a cavity filled with 
spiral springs. I arranged a pile of sandbags 
at each side of the hole in the floor in such a 
way as to be able to lay this curiosity on top to 
form a roof, the mattress part downwards. I 
then filled in with earth all the parts where the 
spiral springs were placed. Total result — a roof 
a foot thick of earth, with a good backbone of 
iron springs. I often afterwards wished that 
that mattress had been filleted, as the spiral 
springs had a nasty way of bursting through 
the striped cover and coming at you like the lid 
of a Jack-in-the-box. However, such is war. 

Above this roof I determined to pile up sand- 
bags against the wall, right away up to the roof 
of the cottage. 

This necessitated about forty sandbags being 
filled, so it may easily be imagined we didn't 
do this all at once. 

However, m time, it was done — I mean after 
we had paid one or two more visits to the 
trenches. 



no BULLETS AND BILLETS 

We all felt safer after these efforts. I think 
we were a bit safer, but not much. I mean 
that we were fairly all right against anything 
but a direct hit, and as we knew from which 
direction direct hits had to come, we made that 
wall as thick as possible. We could, I think, 
have smiled at a direct hit from an i8-pounder, 
provided we had been down our funk hole at the 
time; but, of course, a direct hit from a "John- 
son*' would have snuffed us completely (mat- 
tress and all). 

Life in this house and in the village was much 
more interesting and energetic than in that old 
trench. It was possible, by observing great 
caution, to creep out of the house by day and 
dodge about our position a bit, crawl up to 
points of vantage and survey the scene. Be- 
hind the cottage lay the wood — the great Bois 
de Ploegstert — and this in itself repaid a visit. 
In the early months of 1915 this wood was in a 
pretty mauled-about state, and as time went on 
of course got more so. It was full of old trenches, 
filled with water, relics of the period when we 
turned the Germans out of it. Shattered trees 
and old barbed wire in a solution of mud was the 
chief effect produced by the parts nearest the 



"PLUG-STREET WOOD" in 

trenches, but farther back "Plugstreet Wood" 
was quite a pretty place to walk about in. Birds 
singing all around, and rabbits darting'about the 
tangled undergrowth. Long paths had been cut 
through the wood leading to the various parts 
of the trenches in front. A very quaint place, 
take it all in all, and one which has left a 
curious and not unpleasing impression on my 
mind. 

This ability to wander around and creep 
about various parts of our position, led to my 
getting an idea, which nearly finished my life 
in the cottage, village, or even Belgiimi. I 
suddenly got bitten with the sniping fever, and 
it occurred to me that, with my facilities for 
getting about, I could get into a certain mangled 
farm on our left and remain in the roof unseen 
in daylight. From there I felt sure that, with 
the aid of a rifle, I could tickle up a Boche or 
two in their trenches hard by. I was immensely 
taken with this idea. So, one morning (like 
Robinson Crusoe again) I set off with my 
fowling-piece and ammunition, and crawled 
towards the farm. I got there all right, and 
entering the dark and evil-smelling precincts, 
searched around for a suitable sniping post. 



112 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

I saw a beam overhead in a corner from which, 
if I could get on to it, I felt sure I should obtain 
a view of the enemy trenches through a gap in 
the tiled roof. I tied a bit of string to my 
rifle and then jumping for the beam, scrambled 
up on it and pulled the rifle up after me. When 
my heart pulsations had come down to a 
reasonable figure I peered out through the 
hole in the tiles. An excellent view! The 
German parapet a hundred yards away! 
Splendid! 

Now I felt sure I should see a Boche moving 
about or something; or I might possibly spot 
one looking over the top. 

I waited a long time on that beam, with my 
loaded rifle lying in front of me. I was just 
getting fed up with the waiting, and about to 
go away, when I thought I saw a movement in 
the trench opposite. Yes! it was. I saw the 
handle of something like a broom or a water 
scoop moving above the sandbags. Heart 
doing overtime again! Most exciting! I felt 
convinced I should see a Boche before long. 
And then, at last, I saw one — or rather I caught 
a glimpse of a hat appearing above the line of the 
parapet. One of those small circular cloth hats 




SHUT THAT BLINKIN DOOR, THERE S A ELL OF A DRAUGHT IN ERE 



SNIPING 115 

of theirs with the two trouser buttons in 
front. 

Up it came, and I saw it stand out nice and 
clear against the skyline. I carefully raised 
my rifle, took a steady aim, and fired. I looked : 
disappearance of hat! I ejected the empty 
cartridge case, and was just about to reload 
when, whizz, whistle, bang, crash! a shell came 
right at the farm, and exploded in the courtyard 
behind. I stopped short on the beam. Whizz, 
whistle, bang, crash! Another, right mto the 
old cowshed on my left. Without waiting for 
any more I just slithered down off that beam, 
grabbed my rifle, and dashing out across the 
yard back into the ditch beyond, started hastily 
scrambling along towards the end of one of our 
trenches. As I went I heard four more shells 
crash into that farm. It was at this moment 
that I coined the title of one of my sketches, 
''They've evidently seen me," for which I 
afterwards drew the picture near Wulverghem. 
I got back to our cottage, crawled into the 
hole in the floor, and thought things over. 
They must have seen the flash of my rifle 
through the tiles, and, suspecting possible 
sniping from the farm, must have wired 



Ii6 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

back to their artillery, "Snipingberg from 
^armenhausen hoch!" or words to that 
effect. 
Altogether a very objectionable episode. 



CHAPTER XIII 

ROBINSON CRUSOE — THAT TURBULENT TABLE 

By this time we had really got our little house 
quite snug. A hole in the floor, a three-legged 
chair, and brown paper pushed into the largest 
of the holes in the walls— what more could a 
man want? However, we did want something 
more, and that was a table. One gets tired of 

balancing tins of pi (nearly said it again)— 

marmalade on one's knee and holding an enamel 
cup in one hand and a pocket-knife in the other. 
So we all said how nice a table would be. I 
determined to say no more, but to show by 
deeds, not by words, that I would find a table 
and have one there by the next day, like a fairy 
in a pantomime. I started off on my search 
one night. Take it from me — a fairy's is a poor 
job out there, and when you've read the next 
bit you'll agree. 

Behind our position stood the old ruined 
- "7 



Ii8 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

chateau, and beyond it one or two scattered 
cottages. I had never really had a good look 
at all at that part, and as I knew some of our 
reserve trenches ran around there, and that it 
would be a good thing to know all about them, 
I decided to ask the Colonel for permission to 
creep off one afternoon and explore the whole 
thing; incidentally I might by good luck find a 
table. It was possible, by wriggling up a mud 
valley and crawling over a few scattered rem- 
nants of houses and bygone trenches to reach the 
Coloners headquarter dug-out in daytime. So 
I did it, and asked leave to go off back to have 
a look at the chateau and the land about it. 
He gave me permission, so armed with my 
long walking-stick (a billiard cue with the thin 
part cut off, which I found on passing another 
chateau one night) I started off to explore. 

I reached the chateau. An interesting sight 
it was. How many shells had hit it one couldn't 
even guess, but the results indicated a good Hew, 
What once had been well-kept lawns were now 
covered with articles which would have been 
much better left in their proper places. One 
suddenly came upon half a statue of Minerva 
or Venus wrapped in three-quarters of a stair 



THE RUINED CHATEAU 119 

carpet in the middle of one of the greenhouses. 
Passing on, one would find the lightning con- 
ductor projecting out through the tapestried 
seat of a Louis Quinze chair. I never saw such 
a mess. 

Inside, the upstairs rooms were competing 
with the groimd-floor ones, as to which should 
get into the cellars first. It was really too 
terrible to contemplate the fearful destruction. 

I found it impossible to examine much of the 
interior of the chateau, as blocks of masonry 
and twisted iron girders closed up most of the 
doors and passages. I left this melancholy ruin, 
full of thought, and proceeded across the shell- 
pitted gardens towards the few little cottages 
beyond. These were in a better state of pre- 
servation, and were well worth a visit. In the 
first one I entered I found a table ! the very thing 
I wanted. It was stuck away in a small lean-to 
at the back. A nice little green one, just the 
size to suit us. 

I determined to get it back to our shack 
somehow, but before doing so went on rummag- 
ing about these cottages. In the second cottage 
I made an enormously lucky find for us. Under 
a heap of firewood in an outhouse I found a large 



I20 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

pile of coal. This was splendid, and would be 
invaluable to us and our fire-bucket. Nothing 
pleased me more than this, as the cold was very- 
severe, and a fire meant so much to us. When 
I had completed my investigations and turned 
over all the oddments lying about to see if there 
was anything else of use to us, I started off on 
the return journey. It was now dark, and I was 
able to walk along without fear of being seen. 
Of course, I was taking the table with me. I 
decided to come back later for the coal, with 
a few sandbags for filling, so I covered it over 
and hid it as much as possible. (Sensation : Ali 
Baba returns from the forest.) I started off 
with the table. I had about three-quarters of 
a mile to go. Every hundred yards I had to sit 
down and rest. A table is a horrible thing to 
accompany one on a mile walk. 

I reached the ch§.teau again, and out into the 
fields beyond, resting with my burden about 
three times before I got to the road which led 
straight on to our trenches. My task was a bit 
harder now, as I was in full view of the German 
trenches. Had it been daylight they could have 
seen me quite easily. 

Fortunately it was dark, but, of course, star 



THAT TURBULENT TABLE 121 

shells would show one up quite distinctly. I 
staggered on down the road with the green 
table on my back, pausing as little as possible, 
but a rest had to be taken, and this at a very 
exposed part of the road. I put the table down 







and sat panting on the top. A white streak 
shot into the air — a star shell. Curse! I 
sprang off the green top and waltzed with my 
fotur-legged wooden octopus into the ditch at 
the side, where I lay still, waiting for the 
light to die out. Suspense over. I went on 
again. 



122 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

At last I got back with that table and pushed 
it into our hovel under the sack doorway. 

Immense success! ''Just the thing we 
wanted!" 

We all sat down to dinner that night in the 
approved fashion, whilst I, with the air of a 
conspirator, narrated the incredible story of the 
vast Eldorado of coal which I had discovered, 
and, over our shrimp paste and biscuits we dis- 
cussed plans for its removal. 



CHAPTER XIV 

THE AMPHIBIANS— FED UP, BUT DETERMINED 
— THE GUN PARAPET 

So you see, life in our cottage was quite inter- 
esting and adventurous in its way. At night 
our existence was just the same as before; all 
the normal work of trench life. Making im- 
provements to our trenches led to endless work 
with sandbags, planks, dug-outs, etc. My par- 
ticular job was mostly improving machine- 
gun positions, or selecting new sites and carrying 
out removals, 

''Bruce Bairnsfather. 
Machine guns removed at shortest 

NOTICE. 

Attacks quoted for.*' 

And so the long dark dreary nights went on. 
The men garrisoning the little cracked-up village 
Hved mostly in cellars. Often on my rounds. 

123 



124 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

during a rainy, windy, mournftd night, I would 
look into a cellar and see a congested mass of 
men playing cards by the light of a candle stuck 
on a tin lid. A favourite form of illumination 
I came across was a lamp made out of an empty 
tobacco tin, rifle oil for the illuminant, and a bit 
of a shirt for a wick ! 

People who read all these yarns of mine, 
and who have known the war in later days, will 
say, "Ah, how very different it was then to 
now.'* In my last experiences in the war I 
have watched the enormous changes creeping 
in. They began about July, 191 5. My ex- 
periences since that date were very interesting; 
but I found that much of the romance had left 
the trenches. The old days, from the beginning 
to July, 1 91 5, were all so delightfully precarious 
and primitive. Amateurish trenches and rough 
and ready life, which to my mind gave this war 
what it sadly needs — a touch of romance 

Way back there, in about January, 191 5, our 
soldiers had a perfectly unique test of human 
endurance against appalling climatic conditions. 
They lived in a vast bog, without being able to 
utilize modern contrivances for making the fight 
against adverse conditions anything like an 



A BAD BIT OF TRENCH 125 

equal contest. And yet I wouldn*t have missed 
that time for anything, and I'm sure they 
wouldn't either. 

Those who have not actually had to expe- 
rience it, or have not had the opportunity to see 
what our men *' stuck out" in those days, will 
never fully grasp the reality. 

One night a company commander came to me 
in the village and told me he had got a bit of 
trench imder his control which was altogether 
impossible to hold, and he wanted me to come 
along with him to look at it, and see if I could 
do an3rthing in the way of holding the pOwSition 
by machine guns. His idea was that possibly 
a gun might be fixed in such a place behind so 
as to cover the frontage occupied by this trench. 

I came along with him to have a look and see 
what coiild be done. He and I went up the 
rain-soaked village street and out on to the field 
beyond. It was as dark as pitch, and about 

II P.M. Occasional shots cracked out of the 
darkness ahead from the German trenches, and 
I remember one in partictdar that woke us up a 
bit. A kind of dereHct road-roller stood at one 
side of the field, and as we passed this, walking 
pretty close together, a bullet whizzed between 



126 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

us. I don't know which head it was nearest to, 
but it was quite near enough for both of us. 
We went on across the field for about two hund- 
red yards, out towards a pile of ruins which 
had once been a barn, and which stood between 
our lines and the Germans. 

Near this lay the trench which he had been 
telling me about. It was quite the worst I have 
ever seen. A number of men were in it, stand- 
ing and leaning, silently enduring the following 
conditions. It was quite dark. The enemy 
was about two hundred yards away, or rather 
less. It was raining, and the trench contained 
over three feet of water. The men, therefore, 
were standing up to the waist in water. The 
front parapet was nothing but a rough earth 
mound which, owing to the water about, was 
practically non-existent. Their rifles lay on the 
saturated mound in front. They were all wet 
through and through, with a great deal of their 
equipment below the water at the bottom of the 
trench. There they were, taking it all as a 
necessary part of the great game; not a grumble 
nor a comment. 

The company commander and I at once set 
about scheming out an alternative plan. Some 



THE GUN PARAPET 127 

little distance back we found a cellar which had 
once been below a house. Now there was no 
house, so by standing in the cellar one got a view 
along the ground and level with it. This was 
the very place for a machine gun. So we 
decided on fixing one there and making a sort of 
roof over a portion of the cellar for the gunners to 
live in. After about a couple of hours' work we 
completed this arrangment, and then removed 
the men, who, it was arranged, should leave the 
trenches that night and go back to our billets 
for a rest, till the next time up. We weren't 
quite content with the total safety of our one 
gun in that cellar, so we started off on a further 
idea. 

Our trenches bulged out in a bit of a salient 
to the right of the rotten trench, and we decided 
to mount another gun at a certain projection in 
our lines so as to enfilade the land across which 
the other gun would fire. 

On inspecting the projected site we found it 
was necessary to make rather an abnormally 
high parapet to stand the gun on. No sand- 
bags to spare, of course, so the question was, 
''What shall we make a parapet of?" 

We plodded off back to the village and 



128 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

groped around the ruins for something soKd and 
high enough to carry the gun. After about an 
hour*s dimbing about amongst debris in the 
dark, and hauHng ourselves up into remnants 
of attics, etc., we came upon a sewing machine. 
It was one of that sort that^s stuck on a wooden 
table with a treadle arrangement underneath. 
We saw an idea at a glance. Pull off the sewing 
machine, and use the table. It was nearly high 
enough, and with just three or four sandbags we 
felt certain it would do. We performed the 
necessary surgical operation on the machine, 
and taking it in turns, padded off down to the 
front line trench. We had a bit of a job with 
that table. The parapet was a jumbled assort- 
ment of sandbags, clay, and old bricks from the 
neighbouring barn; but we finally got a good 
sound parapet made, and in about another 
hour's time had fixed a machine gun, with 
plenty of ammunition, in a very unattractive 
position from the Boche point of view. We all 
now felt better, and Tm certain that the men 
who held that trench felt better too. But I am 
equally certain that they would have stayed 
there ad lib even if we hadn't thought of and 
carried out an alternative arrangement. A few 



BUOYANT AS EVER 129 

more nights of rain, danger, and discomfort, then 
the time would come for us to be relieved, and 
those same men would be back at billets, laugh- 
ing, talking, and smoking, buoyant as ever. 



CHAPTER XV 

ARRIVAL OF THE " JOHNSONS '- 

THAT ONE GO?" — THE FIRST FRAGMENT 
DISPATCHED — THE EXODUS — ^WHERE? 

Shortly after these events we experienced 
rather a nasty time in the village. It had 
been decided, way back somewhere at head- 
quarters, that it was essential to hold the 
village in a stronger way than we had been 
doing. More men were to be kept there, and 
a series of trenches dug in and around it, thus 
forming means for an adequate defence should 
disaster befall our front line trenches, which 
lay out on a radius of about five hundred yards 
from the centre of the village. This meant 
working parties at night, and a pretty consider- 
able collection of soldiers lurking in cavities in 
various ruined buildings by day. 

Anyone will know that when a lot of soldiers 

congregate in a place it is almost impossible to 

130 



-JOHNSONS" ARRIVE 133 

prevent someone or other being seen, or smoke 
from some fire showing, or, even worse, a Hght 
visible at night from some imperfectly shuttered 
house. 

At all events, something or other gave the 
Boches the tip, and we soon knew they had got 
their attention on our village. 

Each morning as we clustered round our 
little green table and had our breakfast, we 
invariably had about half a dozen rounds of 18- 
pounders crash around us with varying results,. 
but one day, as w^e'd finished our meal and all 
sat staring into the future, we suddenly caught 
the sound of something on more corpulent 
lines arriving. That ponderous, slow rotating 
whistle of a "Johnson" caught our well-trained 
ears; a pause! then a reverberating, hollow- 
sounding "crumph!" We looked at each other. 

"Heavies!" we all exclaimed. 

"Look out! here comes another!" and sure 
enough there it was, that gargling crescendo of a 
whistle followed by a mighty crash, consider- 
ably nearer. 

We soon decided that our best plan was to 
get out of the house, and stay in the ditch 
twenty yards away until it was over. 



134 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

A house is an unwholesome spot to be in 
when there's shelling about. Our funk hole 
was all right for whizz-bangs and other fire- 
works of that sort, but no use against these 
portmanteaux they were now sending along. 

Well, to resume; they put thirteen heavies 
into that village in pretty quick time. One 
old ruin was set on fire, and I felt the conse- 
quent results would be worse than just losing 
the building; as all the men in it had to rush 
outside and keep darting in and out through 
the flames and smoke, trying to save their rifles 
and equipment. 

After a bit we returned into the house — a 
trifle prematurely, I'm afraid — as presently a 
pretty large line in explosive drainpipes landed 
close outside, and, as we afterwards discovered, 
blew out a fair-sized duck pond in the road. 
We were all inside, and I think nearly everyone 
said a sentence which gave me my first idea 
for a Fragment from France, A sentence which 
must have been said countless times in this war, 
i.e., "Where did that one go?" 

We were all inside the cottage now, with 
intent, staring faces, looking outside through 
the battered doorway. There was something 



SKETCHING THE SCENE 135 

in the whole situation which struck me as so 
pathetically amusing, that when the ardour 
of the Boches had calmed down a bit, I pro- 
ceeded to make a pencil sketch of the situation. 
When I got back to billets the next time I 
determined to make a finished wash drawing of 
the scene, and send it to some paper or other in 
England. In due course we got back to billets, 
and the next morning I fished out my scanty 
drawing materials from my valise and sitting 
at a circular table in one of the rooms at the 
farm, I did a finished drawing of ''Where did 
that one go," occasionally looking through the 
window on to a mountain of maniire outside for 
inspiration. 

The next thing was to send it off. What 
paper should I send it to? I had had a collec- 
tion of papers sent out to me at Christmas time 
from some one or other. A few of these were 
still lying about. A Bystander was amongst them. 
I turned over the pages and considered for a bit 
whether my illustrated joke might be in their 
line. I thought of several other papers, but on 
the whole concluded that the Bystander would 
suit for the purpose, and so, having got the 
address off the cover, I packed up my drawing 



136 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

round a roll of old paper, enclosed it in brown 
paper, and put it out to be posted at the next 
opportunity. In due course it went to the post, 
and I went to the trenches again, forgetting all 
about the incident. 

Next time in the trenches was full of excite- 
ment. We had done a couple of days of the 
endless mud, rain, and bullet-dodging work 
when suddenly one night we heard we were to 
be relieved and go elsewhere. Everyone then 
thought of only one thing — where were we 
going? We all had different ideas. Some said 
we were bound for Ypres, which we heard at 
that time was a pretty ''warm" spot; some said 
La Bassee was our destination — "warm," but 
not qmte as much so as Ypres. Wild rumours 
that we were going to Egypt were of course 
around; they always are. There was another 
beauty : that we were going back to England for 
a rest! 

The night after the news, another battalion 
arrived, and, after handing over our trenches, 
we started off on the road to "Somewhere in 
France." It was about 11.30 P.M. before we 
had handed over everything and finally parted 
from those old trenches of ours. I said good- 



A MIDNIGHT MARCH 137 

bye to our little perforated hovel, and set off 
with all my machine gunners and guns for the 
road behind the wood, to go— goodness knows 
where. We looked back over our shoulders 
several times as we plodded along down the 
muddy road and into the corduroy path which 
ran through the wood. There, behind us, lay 
St. Yvon, under the moonlight and drifting 
clouds; a silhouetted mass of ruins beyond the 
edge of the wood. Still the same old inter- 
mittent cracking of the rifle shots and the occa- 
sional star shell. It was quite sad parting with 
that old evil-smelling, rain-soaked scene of 
desolation. We felt how comfortable we had all 
been there, now that we were leaving. And 
leaving for what?— that was the question. 
When I reached the road, and had superintended 
loading up our limbers, I got instructions from 
the transport officer as to which way we were to 
go. The battaHon had already gone on ahead, 
and the machine-gun section was the last to 
leave. We were to go down the road to Ar- 
mentieres, and at about twelve midnight we 
started on our march, ratthng off down the 
road leading to Armentieres, bound for some 
place we had never seen before. At about 2 



138 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

A.M. we got there; billets had been arranged for 
us, but at two in the morning it was no easy- 
task to find the quarters allotted to us without 
the assistance of a guide. The battalion had 
got there first, had found their billets and gone 
to bed. I and the machine-gun section rattled 
over the cobbles into sleeping Armentieres, and 
hadn't the slightest idea where we had to go. 
Nobody being about to tell us, we paraded the 
town like a circus procession for about an hour 
before finally finding out where we were to billet, 
and ultimately we reached our destination when, 
turning into the bams allotted to us, we made 
the most of what remained of the night in well- 
earned repose. 



CHAPTER XVI 

NEW TRENCHES — THE NIGHT INSPECTION — LET- 
TER FROM THE "bystander" 

Next day we discovered the mystery of our 
sudden removal. The battle of Neuve Cha- 
pelle was claiming considerable attention, and 
that was where we were going. We were 
full of interest and curiosity, and were all for 
getting there as soon as possible. But it was 
not to be. Mysterious moves were being made 
behind the scenes which I, and others like me, 
will never know anything about; but, anyway, 
we now suddenly got another bewildering order. 
After a day spent in Armentieres we were told 
to stand by for going back towards Neuve 
Eglise again, just the direction from which we 
had come. We all knew too much about the 
war to be surprised at anything, so we mutely 
prepared for another exit. It was a daylight 
march this time, and a nice, still, warm day. 
139 



140 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

Quite a cheery, interesting march we had, too, 
along the road from Armentieres to Neuve 
Eglise. We were told that we were to march 
past General Sir Horace Smith Dorrien, whom 
we should find waiting for us near the Pont de 
Nieppe — a place we had to pass en route. Every- 
one braced up at this, and keenly looked for- 
ward to reaching Nieppe. I don't know why, 
but I had an idea he would be in his car on 
the right of the road. To make no mistake I 
muttered "Eyes right" to myself for about a 
quarter of a mile, so as to make a good thing of 
the salute. We came upon the Pont de Nieppe 
suddenly, round the corner, and there was the 
General — on the left ! All my rehearsing useless. 
Annoying, but I suppose one can't expect Gen- 
erals to tell you where they are going to stand. 
We reached Neuve Eglise in time, and went 
into our old billets. We all thought our fate 

was" back into those old Plugstreet trenches 

again, " but mirahile dictu — ^it was not to be so. 
The second day in billets I received a message 
from the Colonel to proceed to his headquarter 
farm. I went, and heard the news. We were 
to take over a new line of trenches away to the 
left of Plugstreet, and that night I was to 



NEW TRENCHES 



141 



accompany him along with all the company 
commanders on a round of inspection. 

A little before dusk we started off and pro- 
ceeded along various roads towards the new 
line. All the country was now brand-new to 
me, and full of interest. After we had gone 
about a mile and a half the character of the 
land changed. We had left all the Plugstreet 
wood effect behind, and now emerged on to 
far more open and 
flatter ground. By 
dusk we were go- 
ing down a long 
straight road with 
poplar trees on 
either side. At 
the end of this 
stood a farm on^^ 

the right. We L oivum' ^ w_,, - . . ^ 
walked into the W^^ 1*- ^t^'^-^ 
courtyard and Q 

across it into the 

farm. This was the place the battalion we were 
going to relieve had made its headquarters. Not 
a bad farm. The roof was still on, I noticed, and 
concluded from that that life there was evidently 




142 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

passable. We had to wait here some time, as 
we were told that the enemy could see for a great 
distance around there, and would pepper up the 
farm as sure as fate if they saw anyone about. 
Our easy-going entry into the courtyard had not 
been received with great favour, as it appeared 
we were doing just the very thing to get the roof 
removed. However, the dusk had saved us, I 
fancy. 

As soon as it was really dark we all sallied 
forth, accompanied by guides this time, who 
were to show us the trenches. I crept along 
behind our Colonel, with my eyes peeled for 
possible gun positions, and drinking in as many 
details of the entire situation as I could. 

We walked about ten miles that night, I 
should think, across unfamiliar swamps and 
over unsuspected antique abandoned trenches, 
past dead cows and pigs. We groped about 
the wretched shell-pitted fields, examining the 
trenches we were about to take over. You 
would be surprised to find how difficult a simple 
Ime of trenches can seem at night if you have 
never seen them before. 

You don't seem able to get the angles, some- 
how, nor to grasp how the whole situation 



A NIGHT INSPECTION 143 

faces, or how you get from one part to another, 
and all that sort of thing. I know that by the 
time I had been along the whole lot, round 
several hundred traverses, and up dozens of 
communication trenches and saps, all my 
mariner-like abiHty for finding my way back to 
Neuve Eglise had deserted me. Those guides 
were absolutely necessary in order to get us back 
to the headquarter farm. One wants a com- 
pass, the pole star, and plenty of hope ever to 
get across those enormous prairies — known as 
fields out there — and reach the place at the 
other side one wants to get to. It is a long 
study before you really learn the simplest and 
best way up to your own bit of trench; but 
when it comes to learning everybody else's 
way up as well (as a machine gunner has 
to), it needs a long and painful course of in- 
struction — higher branches of this art con- 
sisting of not only knowing the way up, 
but the safest way up. 

The night we carried out this tour of inspec- 
tion we were all left in a fog as to how we had 
gone to and returned from the trenches. After 
we had got in we knew, by long examination of 
the maps, how everything lay, but it was some 



144 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

time before we had got the real practica/ hang 
of it all. 

Our return journey from the inspection 
was a pretty silent affair. We all knew these 
were a nasty set of trenches. Not half so 
pleasant as the Plugstreet ones. The conversa- 
tions we had with the present owners made it 
quite clear that warm times were the vogue 
round there. Altogether we could see we were 
in for a " bit of a time. " 

We cleared off back to Neuve Eglise that 
night, and next day took those trenches over. 
This was the beginning of my life at Wulver- 
ghem. When we got in, late that night, we 
found that the post had arrived some time 
before. Thinking there might be something for 
me, I went into the back room where they sorted 
the letters, to get any there might be before go- 
ing off to my own billets. "There's only one for 
you, sir, to-night, " said the corporal who looked 
after the letters. He handed me an envelope. 
I opened it. Inside, a short note and a cheque. 

"We shall be very glad to accept your sketch, 
'Where did that one go to?' From the By- 
stander'' — the foundation-stone of Fragments 
from France, 



CHAPTER XVII 

WULVERGHEM — THE DOUVE — CORDUROY 
BOARDS — BACK AT OUR FARM 

We got out of the frying-pan into the fire 
when we went to Wulverghem — a much more 
exciting and precarious locality than Plugstreet. 
During all my war experiences I have grown 
to regard Plugstreet as the imit of tranquillity. 
I have never had the fortune to return there 
since those times mentioned in previous chap- 
ters. When you leave Plugstreet you take away 
a pleasing memory of slime and reasonable 
shelling, which is more than you can say for the 
other places. If you went to Plugstreet after, 
say, the Ypres Salient, it would be more or less 
like going to a convalescent home after a pain- 
ful operation. 

But, however that may be, we were now 

booked for Wulverghem, or rather the trenches 

which lie along the base of the Messines ridge* 

145 ' * 



146 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

about a mile in front of that shattered hamlet. 
Two days after our tour of inspection we started 
off to take over. The nuisance about these 
trenches was that the point where one had to 
unload and proceed across country, man-hand- 
ling everything, was abnormally far away from 
the firing line. We had about a mile and a half 
to do after we had marched collectively as a 
battalion, so that my machine gunners were 
obliged to carry the guns and all the tackle we 
needed all that distance to their trenches. This, 
of course, happened every time we "came in.'* 
The land where these trenches lay was a 
vast and lugubrious expanse of mud, with 
here and there a charred and ragged building. 
On our right lay the river Douve, and, on our 
left, the trenches turned a corner back inwards 
again. In front lay the long line of the Mes- 
sines ridge. The Boches had occupied this 
ridge, and our trenches ran along the valley 
at its foot. The view which the Boches got 
by being perched on this hill rendered them 
exactly what their soul delights in, i.e., "uber 
alles. " They can see for miles. However, 
those little disadvantages have not prevented 
us from efficiently maintaining our trenches at 



NEW GROUND 147 

the far end of the plain, in spite of the difficulty 
of carrying material across this fiat expanse. 

I forget what night of the week we went in 
and took over those trenches, but, anyhow, it 
was a precious long one. I had only seen 
the place once before, and in the darkness of 
the night had a long and arduous job finding the 
way to the various positions allotted for my 
guns, burdened as I was with all my sections 
and impedimenta. I imagine I walked about 
five or six miles that night. We held a front of 
about a mile, and, therefore, not only did I 
have to do the above-mentioned mile and a half, 
but also two or three miles going from end to 
end of our line. It was as dark as could be, and 
the unfamiliar ground seemed to be pitted like 
a Gruyere cheese with shell holes. Unlimbering 
back near a farm we sloshed off across the mud 
fiat towards the section of trench which we had 
been ordered to occupy. I trusted to instinct 
to strike the right angles for coming out at the 
trenches which henceforth were to be ours. In 
those days my machine guns were the old type 
of Maxim — a very weighty concern. To carry 
these guns and all the necessary ammunition 
across this desert was a long and very exhaust- 



148 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

ing process. Occasional bursts of machine-gun 
fire and spent bullets "zipping" into the mud 
all around hardly tended to cheer the proceed- 
ings. The path along to the right-hand set of 
trenches, where I knew a couple of guns must 
go, was lavishly strewn with dead cows and pigs. 
When we paused for a rest we always seemed 
to do so alongside some such object, and con- 
sequently there was no hesitation in moving 
on again. None of us had the slightest idea 
as to the nature of the country on which we 
were now operating. I myself had seen it only 
by night, and nobody else had been there at all. 

The commencement of the journey from the 
farm of disembarkation lay along what is 
known as corduroy boards. These are short, 
rough, wooden planks, nailed crossways on long 
baulks of timber. This kind of path is a very 
popular one at the front, and has proved an 
immense aid in saving the British army from 
being swallowed up in the mud. 

The corduroy path ran out about four hun- 
dred yards across the grassless, sodden field. 
We then came suddenly to the beginning of 
a road. A small cottage stood on the right, 
and in front of it a dead cow. Here we unfor- 



S^^^'lr,^^" -. ■* ■ 



>> . 



y ~ '7k- 







WHAT HE doesn't KNOW ABOUT FIRE BUCKETS AND THE TIME THE RUM 
COMES UP isn't worth KNOWING 



SKELETON FARMS 151 

tunately paused, but almost immediately moved 
on (gas masks weren't introduced until much 
later!). 

From this point the road ran in a long straight 
line towards Messines. At intervals, on the 
right-hand side only, stood one or two farms, 
or, rather, their skeletons. As we went along 
in the darkness these farms silhouetted their 
dreary remains against the faint light in the sky, 
and looked like vast decayed wrecks of antique 
Spanish galleons upside down. On past these 
farms the road was suddenly cut across by a 
deep and ugly gash: a reserve trench. So now 
we were getting nearer to our destination. A 
particularly large and evil-smelling farm stood 
on the right. The reserve trench ran into its 
back yard, and disappeared amongst the ruins. 
From the observations I had made, when in- 
specting these trenches, I knew that the ex- 
treme right of our position was a bit to the right 
of this farm, so I and my performing troupe 
decided to go through the farmyard and out 
diagonally across the field in front. We did 
this, and at last could dimly discern the line of 
the trenches in front. We were now on the ex- 
treme right of the section we had to control, close 



152 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

to the river Douve, and away to the left ran the 
whole line of our trenches. Along the whole 
length of this Hne the business of taking over 
from the old battalion was being enacted. That 
old battalion made a good bargain when they 
handed over that lot of slots to us. The trenches 
lay in a sort of echelon formation, the one on 
the extreme right being the most advanced. 
This one we made for, and as we squelched 
across the mud to it a couple of German star 
shells fizzed up into the air and illuminated the 
whole scene. By their light I could see the 
whole position, but could form only an approxi- 
mate idea of how our lines ran, as our parapets 
and trenches merged into the mud so effectively 
as to look like a vast, tangled, disorderly mass of 
sandbags, slime, and shell holes. We reached 
the right-hand trench. It was a curious sort of 
a trench too, quite a different pattern to those 
we had occupied at St. Yvon. The first thing 
that struck me about all these trenches was the 
quantity of sandbags there were, and the geo- 
metrical exactness of the attempts at traverses, 
fire steps, bays, etc. Altogether, theoretically, 
much superior trenches, although very cramped 
and narrow. I waited for another star shell ia 



FIXING THE GUNS 153 

order to see the view out in front. One hadn't 
long to wait around there for star shells. One 
very soon sailed up, nice and white, into the 
inky sky, and I saw how we were placed with 
regard to the Germans, the hill, and Messines. 
We were quite near a little stream, a tributary 
of the Douve, in fact it ran along the front of 
our trenches. Immediately on the other side 
the ground rose in a gradual slope up the Mes- 
sines hill, and about three-quarters way up this 
slope were the German trenches. 

When I had settled the affairs of the machine 
guns in the right-hand trench I went along the 
line and fixed up the various machine-gun 
teams in the different trenches as I came to 
them. The ground above the trenches was so 
eaten away by the filling of sandbags and the 
cavities caused by shell fire, that I found it far 
quicker and simpler to walk along in the 
trenches themselves, squeezing past the men 
standing about and around the thick traverses. 
Our total frontal length must have been three- 
quarters of a mile, I should think. This, our 
first night in, was a pretty busy one. Dug-outs 
had to be found to accommodate everyone; 
platoons arranged in all the sections of trench, 



154 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

all the hundred-and-one details which go to 
making trench life as secure and comfortable as 
is possible under the circumstances, had to be 
seen to and arranged. I had fixed up all the 
sections by about ten o'clock and then started 
along the lines again trying to get as clear an 
idea as possible of the entire situation of the 
trenches, the type of land in front of each, the 
means of access to each trench, and possible 
improvements in the various gun positions. 
All this had to be done to the accompaniment of 
a pretty lively mixture of bullets and star shells. 
Sniping was pretty severe that night, and, in- 
deed, all the time we were in those Douve 
trenches. There was an almost perpetual suc- 
cession of rifle shots, intermingled with the rapid 
crackling uf machine-gun fire. However, you 
soon learn out there that you can just as easily 
*'get one" on the calmest night by an accidental 
spent bullet as you can when a little hate is on, 
and bullets are coming thick and fast. The first 
night we came to the Douve was a pretty calm 
one, comparatively speaking; yet one poor 
chap in the leading platoon, going through 
the farm courtyard I mentioned, got shot 
right through the forehead. No doubt what- 



STRAY BULLETS 155 

ever it was an accidental bullet, and not an 
aimed shot, as the Germans could not have 
possibly seen the farm owing to the darkness of 
the night. 

Just as I was finishing my tour of inspection 
I came across the Colonel, who was going round 
everything, and thoroughly reconnoitring the 
position. He asked me to show him the gun 
positions. I went with him right along the line. 
We stood about on parapets, and walked all over 
the place, stopping motionless now and again 
as a star shell went up, and moving on again 
just in time to hear a btillet or two whizz past 
behind and go "smack" into a tree in the hedge 
behind, or **plop" into the mud parados. 
When the Colonel had finished his tour of in- 
spection he asked me to walk back with him 
to his headquarters. "Where are you living, 
Bairnsfather?" said the Colonel to me. "I 
don't know, sir," I replied. "I thought of 
fixing up in that farm (I indicated the most 
aromatized one by the reserve trench) and 
making some sort of a dug-out if there isn't a 
cellar; it's a fairly central position for all the 
trenches." 

The Colonel thought for a moment: "You'd 



156 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

better come along back to the farm on the 
road for to-night anyway, and you can spend 
to-morrow decorating the walls with a few 
sketches, ' ' he said. This was a decidedly better 
suggestion, a reprieve, in fact, as prior to this 
remark my bedroom for the night looked like 
being a borrowed ground sheet slung over some 
charred rafters which were leaning against a 
wall in the yard. 

I followed along behind the Colonel down the 
road, down the corduroy boards, and out at the 
old moated farm not far from Wulverghem. 
Thank goodness, I should get a floor to sleep 
on! A roof, too! Straw on the floor! How 
splendid ! 

It was quite delightful turning into that farm 
courtyard, and entering the building. Dark, 
dismal, and deserted as it was, it afforded an 
immense, glowing feeling of comfort after that 
mysterious, dark and wintry plain, with its long 
lines of grey trenches soaking away there under 
the inky sky. 

Inside I found an empty room with some 
straw on the floor. There was only one shell 
hole in it, but some previous tenant had stopped 
it up with a bit of sacking. My word, I 



SLEEP 157 

was tired! I rolled myself round with straw, 
and still retaining all my clothes, greatcoat, 
balaclava, muffler, trench boots, I went to 
sleep. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE PAINTER AND DECORATOR — ''FRAGMENTS*' 
FORMING — NIGHT ON THE MUD PRAIRIE 

Had a fairly peaceful night. I say fairly be- 
cause when one has to get up three or four times 
to see whether the accumulated rattle of rifle 
fire is going to lead to a battle, or turn out only 
to be merely ''wind up, " it rather disturbs one's 
rest. You see, had an attack of some sort come 
on, yours truly would have had to rim about a 
mile and a half to some central spot to overlook 
the machine-gun department. I used to think 
that to be actually with one gun was the best 
idea, but I subsequently found that this plan 
hampered me considerably from getting to my 
others; the reason being that, once estabhshed 
in one spot during an open trench attack, it is 
practically impossible to get to another part 
whilst the action is on. 

At the Douve, however, I discovered a way 
158 



WEIRD NOISES I59 

of getting round this which I will describe 
later. 

On this first night, not being very familiar 
with the neighbourhood, I found it difficult to 
ignore the weird noises which floated in through 
the sack-covered hole. There is something 
very eerie and strange about echoing rifle shots 
in the silence of the night. Once I got up and 
walked out into the courtyard of the farm, and 
passing through it came out on to the end of the 
road. All as still as still could be, except the 
distant intermittent cracking of the rifles com- 
ing from away across the plain, beyond the long 
straight row of lofty poplar trees which marked 
the road. A silence of some length might super- 
vene, in which one would only hear the gentle 
rustling of the leaves; then suddenly, far away 
on the right, a faint surging roar can be heard, 
and then louder and louder. ''Wind up over 
there." Then, gradually, silence would assert 
itself once more and leave you with nothing but 
the rustling leaves and the crack of the sniper's 
rifle on the Messines ridge. 

My first morning at this farm was, by special 
request, to be spent in decorating the walls. 
There wasn't much for anyone to do in the 



i6o BULLETS AND BILLETS 

daytime, as nobody could go out. The same 
complaint as the other place in St. Yvon: "We 
mustn't look as if anyone lives in the farm." 
Drawing, therefore, was a great aid to me in 
passing the day. Whilst at breakfast I made a 
casual examination of the room where we had 
our meals. I was not the first to draw on the 
walls of that room. Some one in a previous 
battaHon had already put three or four sketches 
on various parts of the fire-place. Several 
large spaces remained all round the room, how- 
ever; but I noticed that the surface was very 
poor compared with the wall round the fire-place. 
The main surface was a rough sort of thing, 
and, on regarding it closely, it looked as if it 
was made of frozen porridge, being slightly 
rough, and of a grey-brown colour. I didn't 
know what on earth I could use to draw on this 
surface, but after breakfast I started to scheme 
out something. I went into the back room 
which we were now using as a kitchen, and find- 
ing some charcoal I tried that. It was quite 
useless — ^wouldn't make a mark on the wall at 
all. Why, I don't know; but the charcoal just 
glided about and merely seemed to make dents 
and scratches on the "frozen porridge. " I then 



"FRAGMENTS" FORMING i6i 

tried to make up a mixture. It occurred to me 
that possibly soot might be made into a sort of 
ink, and used with a paint brush. I tried this, 
but drew a blank again. I was bordering on 
despair, when my servant said he thought he 
had put a bottle of Indian ink in my pack when 
we left to come into the trenches this time. He 
had a look, and found that his conjecture was 
right; he had got a bottle of Indian ink and 
a few brushes, as he thought I might want 
to draw something, so had equipped the pack 
accordingly. 

I now started my fresco act on the walls 
of the Douve farm. 

I spent most of the day on the job, and 
discovered how some startling effects could be 
produced. 

Materials were: A bottle of Indian ink, a 
couple of brushes, about a hundredweight of 
useless charcoal, and a G.S. blue and red 
pencil. 

Amongst the rough sketches that I did that 
day were the original drawings for two subse- 
quent "Fragments" of mine. 

One was the rough idea for "They've evi- 
dently seen me, " and the other was " My dream 



i62 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

for years to come.*' The idea for "TheyVe 
evidently seen me" came whilst carrying back 
that table to St. Yvon, as I mentioned in a 
previous chapter, but the scenario for the idea 
was not provided for until I went to this farm 
some time later. In intervals of working at the 
walls I rambled about the farm building, and 
went up into a loft over a barn at the end of 
the farm nearest the trenches. I looked out 
through a hole in the tiles just in time to hear a 
shell come over from away back amongst the 
Germans somewhere, and land about five hund- 
red yards to the left. The sentence, "They've 
evidently seen me," came flashing across my 
mind again, and I now saw the correct setting 
in my mind: i.e., the enthusiastic observer 
looking out of the top of a narrow chimney, 
whilst a remarkably well-aimed shell leads 
"him of the binoculars" to suppose that they 
have seen him. 

I came downstairs and made a pencil sketch 
of my idea, and before I left the trenches that 
time I had done a wash drawing and sent it to 
England. This was my second "Fragment." 

The other sketch, "My dream for years to 
come, " was drawn on one wall of a small apple 



GOING THE ROUNDS 163 

or potato room, opening ojQf our big room, and 
the drawing occupied the whole wall. 

I knocked off drawing about four o'clock, 
and did a little of the alternative occupation, 
that of looking out through the cracked win- 
dows on to the mutilated courtyard in front. 
It was getting darker now, and nearing the 

time when I had to put on all my tackle, and 
gird myself up for my round of the trenches. 
As soon as it was nearly dark I started out. 
The other officers generally left a bit later, but 
as I had such a long way to go, and as I wanted 
to examine the country while there was yet a 
little hght, I started at dusk. Not yet knowing 
exactly how much the enemy could see on the 
open mud fiat, I determined to go along by the 
river bank, and by keeping among the trees I 
hoped to escape observation, I made for the 



1 64 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

Douve, and soon got along as far as the row of 
farms. I explored all these, and a shocking 
sight they were. All charred and ruined, and 
the skeleton remains slowly decomposing away 
into the unwholesome ground about them. I 
went inside several of the dismantled rooms. 
Nearly all contained old and battered bits of 
soldiers' equipment, empty tins, and remnants 
of Belgian property. Sad relics of former billet- 
ing: a living reminder of the rough times that 
had preceded our arrival in this locality. I 
passed on to another farm, and entered the 
yard near the river. It was nearly full of black 
wooden crosses, roughly made and painted 
over with tar. All that was left to mark the 
graves of those who had died to get our trenches 
where they were — at the bottom of the Messines 
ridge. A bleak and sombre winter's night, that 
courtyard of the ruined farm, the rows of crosses 
— I often think of it all now. 

As the darkness came on I proceeded towards 
the trenches, and when it had become suffi- 
ciently dark I entered the old farm by the reserve 
trench and crossed the yard to enter the field 
which led to the first of our trenches. At St. 
Yvon it was pretty airy work, going the rounds 



BACK TO DOUVE FARM 165 

at night, but this was a jolly sight more so. 
The country was far more open, and although 
the Boches couldn't see us, yet they kept up an 
incessant sniping demonstration. Picking up 
my sergeant at Number i trench, he and I 
started on our tour. 

We made a long and exhaustive examination 
that night, both of the existing machine-gun 
emplacements and of the entire ground, with a 
view to changing our positions. It was a long 
time before I finally left the trenches and started 
off across the desolate expanse to the Douve 
farm, and I was dead beat when I arrived there. 
On getting into the big room I found the Colonel, 
who had just come in. ''Where's that right- 
hand gun of yours, Baimsfather?" he asked. 
"Down on the right of Number 2 trench, sir," 
I answered; "just by the two willows near the 
sap which runs out towards Number i. " "It's 
not much of a place for it, " he said; " where we 
ought to have it is to the right of the sap, so 
that it enfilades the whole front of that trench. " 
"When do you want it moved, sir?" I asked. 
"Well, it ought to be done at once; it's no good 
where it is. " 

That fixed it. I knew what he wanted; so 



i66 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

I started out again, back over the mile and a 
half to alter the gun. It was a weary job ; but 
I would have gone on going back and altering 
the whole lot for our Colonel, who was the best 
line in commanding officers I ever struck. 
Everyone Jiad the most perfect confidence in 
him. He was the most shell, bullet, and bomb 
defying person I have ever seen. When I got 
back for the second time that night I was quite 
ready to roll up in the straw, and be lulled off to 
sleep by the cracking rifle fire outside. 






A MESSINES memory: " 'OW ABOUT SHIFTIN A BIT FURTHER 
DOWN THE ROAD, FRED? " 



CHAPTER XIX 

VISIONS OF LEAVE— DICK TURPIN— LEAVE ! 

Our first time in the Douve trenches was 
mainly tmeventful, but we all decided it was 
not as pleasant as St. Yvon. For my part, 
it was fifty per cent, worse than St. Yvon; 
but I was now buoyed up by a new light in 
the sky, which made the first time in more 
tolerable than it might otherwise have been. 
It was getting near my turn for leave! I had 
been looking forward to this for a long time, 
but there were many who had to take their turn 
in front of me, so I had dismissed the case for 
a bit. Recently, however, the powers that be 
had been sending more than one officer away 
at a time; consequently my turn was rapidly 
approaching. We came away back to billets in 
the usual way after our first dose of the Douve, 
and all wallowed off to our various billeting 
quarters. I was hot and strong on the leave 

1.69 



170 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

idea now. It was really getting close, and I felt 
disposed to find everything couleur de rose. 
Even the manure heap in the billeting farm- 
yard looked covered with roses. I could have 
thrown a bag of confetti at the farmer's wife — 
it*s most exhilarating to think of the coming of 
one's first leave. One maps out what one will 
do with the time in a hundred different ways. 
I was wondering how I could manage to trans- 
port my souvenirs home, as I had collected a 
pretty good supply by this time — shell cases, 
fuse tops, clogs, and that Boche rifle I got on 
Christmas Day. 

One morning (we had been about two days 
out) I got a note from the Adjutant to say I 
could put in my application. I put it in all 
right and then sat down and hoped for the 
best. 

My spirits were now raised to such a pitch 
that I again decided to ride to Nieppe — ^just 
for fun. 

I rode away down the long winding line, 
smiling at everything on either side — the three- 
sailed windmill with the top off; the estaminet 
with the hole through the gable end — all ob- 
jects seemed to radiate peace and goodwill. 



"ALL LEAVE'S CANCELLED" 171 

There was a very bright sun in the sky that day. 
I rode down to the high road, and cantered 
along the grass at the side into Nieppe. Just as 
I entered the town I met a friend riding out. 
He shouted something at me. I couldn't hear 
what he said. ' ' What ? " I yelled. ' ' All leave's 
cancelled!" . . . That was enough for me. 
I rode into Nieppe like an infuriated cowboy. 
I went straight for the divisional headquarters, 
flimg away the horse, and dashed up into the 
building. I knew one or two of the officers 
there. "What's this about leave?" I asked. 
"All about to be cancelled," was the reply. 
" If you're quick, you may get yours through, 
as you've been out here long enough, and you're 
next to go." "What have I got to do?" I 
screamed. " Go to your Colonel, and ask him to 
wire the Corps headquarters and ask them to 
let you go; only you'll have to look sharp about 
it." 

He needn't have told me that. He had 
hardly finished before I was outside and making 
for my horse. I got out of Nieppe as quickly 
as I could, and lit out for our battalion head- 
quarters. About four miles to go, but I lost 
no time about it . " Leave cancelled ! " I hissed 



172 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

through the triangular gap in my front tooth, 
as I galloped along the road; "leave cancelled!'* 

I should have made a good film actor that 
day : " Dick Turpin's Ride to York " in two reels. 
I reached the turning off the high road all right, 
and pursued my wild career down the lanes 
which led to the Colonel's headquarters. The 
road wound about in a most ridiculous way, 
making salients out of ploughed fields on either 
side. I decided to throw all prudence to the 
winds, and cut across these. My horse evi- 
dently thought this an excellent idea, for as soon 
as he got on the fields he was off like a trout up 
stream. Most successful across the first salient, 
then, suddenly, I saw we were approaching a 
wide ditch. Leave would be cancelled as far as 
I was concerned if I tried to jump that, I felt 
certain. I saw a sort of a narrow bridge about 
fifty yards to the right. Tried to persuade the 
horse to make for it. No, he believed in the 
ditch idea, and put on a sprint to jump it. Ter- 
rific battle between Dick Turpin and Black Bess ! 

A foaming pause on the brink of the abyss. 
Dick Turpin wins the argument, and after a 
few prancing circles described in the field man- 
ages to cross the bridge with his fiery steed. I 



I EXPLAIN MY CASE 173 

then rode down the road into the little village. 
The village school had been turned into a bat- 
talion stores, and the quarter-master-sergeant 
was invariably to be found there. I dismounted 
and pulled my horse up a couple of steps into the 
large schoolroom. Tied him up here, and last 
saw him blowing clouds of steam out of his 
nose on to one of those maps which show inter- 
esting forms of vegetable life with their Latin 
names underneath. Now for the Colonel. I 
clattered off down the street to his temporary 
orderly room. Thank heaven, he was in! I 
explained the case to him. He said he would do 
his best, and there and then sent off a wire. 
I could do no more now, so after fixing up that a 
message should be sent me, I slowly retraced 
my steps to the school, extracted the horse, and 
wended my way slowly back to the Transport 
Farm. Here I langmshed for the rest of the 
day, feeHng convinced that "all leave was 
cancelled." I sat down to do some sketching 
after tea, fiill of marmalade and depression. 
About 6 P.M. I chucked it, and went and sat by 
the stove, smoking a pipe. Suddenly the door 
opened and a bicycle orderly came in: "There's 
a note from the Adjutant for you, sir." 



174 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

I tore it open. "Your leave granted; you 
leave to-morrow. If you call here in the morn- 
ing, I'll give you your pass. " 

Leave!! 



CHAPTER XX 

THAT LEAVE TRAIN — ^MY OLD PAL — ^LONDON 
AND HOME — THE CALL OF THE WILD 



One wants to have been at the front, in the 
nasty parts, to appreciate fully what getting 
seven days' 
leave feels like. 
We used to 
have to be out 
at the front for 
three consecu- 
tive months be- 
fore being 
entitled to this 
privilege. I 
had passed this 
necessary ap- 
prentice ship, 
and now had 
actually got my leave. 

The morning after getting my instructions 
175 




iicM ** 



ff 



♦ - ^ 



176 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

I rose early, and packed the few things I was 
going to take with me. Very few things they 
were, too. Only a pack and a haversack, and 
both contained nothing but souvenirs. I de- 
cided to go to the station via the orderly room, 
so that I could do both in one journey. I had 
about two miles to go from my billets to the 
orderly room in the village, and about a mile on 
from there to the station. Some one suggested 
my riding — no fear; I was running no risks now. 
I started off early with my servant. We took 
it in shifts with my heavy bags of souvenirs. 
One package (the pack) had four "Little Willie" 
cases inside, in other words, the cast-iron shell 
cases for the German equivalent of our i8- 
pounders. The haversack was filled with alu- 
minium fuse tops and one large piece of a "Jack 
Johnson" shell case. My pockets— and I had 
a good number, as I was wearing my greatcoat — 
were filled with a variety of objects. A pair 
of little clogs found in a roof at St. Yvon, several 
cHps of German bullets removed from equip- 
ment found on Christmas Day, and a collection 
of bullets which I had picked out with my 
pocket-knife from the walls of our house in St. 
Yvon. The only additional luggage to this 



THAT LEAVE TRAIN 177 

inventory I have given was my usual copious 
supply of Gold Flake cigarettes, of which, dur- 
ing my Hfe in France, I must have consumed 
several army corps. 

It was a glorious day — bright, sunny, and 
a faint fresh wind. Everything seemed bright 
and rosy. I felt I should have liked to skip 
along the road like a young bay tree — no, 
that's wrong — Hke a ram, only I didn't think 
it would be quite the thing with my servant 
there (King's Regula- 
tions: Chapter 158, para- 
graph 96, line 4) ; besides, 
he wasn't going on leave, 
so it would have been 
rather a dirty trick after 
all. 

We got to the village 
with aching arms and souvenirs intact. I got my 
pass, and together with another officer we set 
out for the station . It was a leave train. Offi- 
cers from all sorts of different battalions were 
either in it or going to get in, either here or at the 
next stop. 

Having no wish to get that station into 
trouble, or myself either, by mentioning its 




178 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

name, I will call it Crdme de Menthe. It was 
the same rotten little place I had arrived at. 
It is only because I am trying to sell the 
*' station-master" a copy of this book that I 
call the place a station at all. It really is a 
decomposing collection of half-hearted build- 
ings and moss-grown rails, with an apology for 
a platform at one side. 

We caught the train with an hour to spare. 
You can't miss trains in France: there's too 
much margin allowed on the time-table. The 
10:15 leaves at 11:30, the 11:45 at 2:20, and 
so on; besides, if you did miss your train, you 
could always catch it up about two fields away, 
so there's nothing to worry about. 

We started. I don't know what time it was. 

If you turn up the word ** locomotion" in 
a dictionary, you will find it means "the act 
or power of moving from place to place"; from 
locus, a place, and motion, the act of moving. Our 
engine had got the locus part all right, but was 
rather weak about the motion. We creaked and 
squeaked about up the moss-grown track, and 
groaned our way back into the station time after 
time, in order to tie on something else behind the 
train, or to get on to a siding to let a trainload of 



MY OLD PAL 179 

tr^ch floorboards and plum and apple jangle 
past up the line. When at last we really started, 
it was about at the speed of the "Rocket " on its 
trial trip. 

Our enthusiastic "going on leave" ardour 
was severely tested, and neariy broke down 
before we reached Boulogne, which we did 
late that night. But getting there, and min- 
gling with the leave-going crowd which thronged 
the buffet, made up for all travelling short- 
comings. Every variety of officer and army 
official was represented there. There were 
colonels, majors, captains, Heutenants, quanti- 
ties of private soldiers, sergeants and corporals, 
hospital nurses, and various other people em- 
ployed in some war capacity or other. Repre- 
sentatives from every branch of the Army, in 
fact, whose turn for leave had come. 

I left the bufiEet for a moment to go across 
to the Transport Office, and walking along 
through the throng ran into my greatest friend. 
A most extraordinary chance this! I had not 
the least idea whereabouts in France he was, 
or when he might be Hkely to get leave. His 
job was in quite a different part, many miles 
from the Douve. I have known him for many 



i8o BULLETS AND BILLETS 

years; we were at school together, and have 
always seemed to have the lucky knack of bob- 
bing up to the surface simultaneously without 
prior arrangement. This meeting sent my 
spirits up higher than ever. We both ad- 
journed to the buffet, and talked away about 
our various experiences to the accompaniment 
of cold chicken and ham. A merry scene truly, 
that buffet — everyone filled- with thoughts of 
England. Nearly everyone there must have 
stepped out of the same sort of mud and danger 
bath that I had. And, my word! it is a first- 
class feeling: sitting about waiting for the boat 
when you feel youVe earned this seven days' 
leave. You hear men on all sides getting the 
last oimce of appreciation out of the unique 
sensation by saying such things as, "Fancy 
those poor blighters, sitting in the mud up there; 
they'll be just about getting near 'Stand to' 
now. " 

You rapidly dismiss a momentary flash in 
your mind of what it's going to be like in that 
buffet on the return journey. 

Early in the morning, and while it was still 
dark, we left the harbour and ploughed out 
into the darkness and the sea towards England. 



NOT NAUTICAL i8i 

I claim the honoured position of the world's 
worst sailor. I have covered several thousand 
miles on the sea, "brooked the briny" as far as 
India and Canada. I have been hurtled about 
on the largest Atlantic waves; yet I am, and 
always will remain, absolutely impossible at sea. 
Looking at the docks out of the hotel window 
nearly sends me to bed ; there's something about 
a ship that takes the stuffing out of me com- 
pletely. Whether it's that horrible pale var- 
nished woodwork, mingled with the smell of 
stuffy upholstery, or whether it's that nauseat- 
ing whiff from the open hatch of the engine-room, 
I don't know; but once on a ship I am as naught 
. . . not nautical. 

Of course the Channel was going to be rough. 
I could see that at a glance. I know exactly 
what to do about the sea now. I go straight to 
a bunk, and hope for the best; if no bunk — bribe 
the steward until there is one. 

I got a bunk, deserted my friend in a cheerless 
way, and retired till the crossing was over. It 
was very rough .... 

In the cold grey hours we glided into -Dover 
or Folkestone (I was too anaemic to care which) 



i82 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

and fastened up alongside the wharf. I had a 
dim recollection of getting my pal to hold my 
pack as we left Boulogne, and now I could see 
neither him nor the pack. Fearful crush strug- 
gling up the gangway. I had to scramble for a 
seat in the London train, so couldn't waste time 
looking for my friend. I had my haversack — 
he had my pack. 

The train moved off, and now here we all were, 
back in clean, fresh, luxurious England, gliding 
along in an English train towards London. 
It*s worth doing months and months of trenches 
to get that buoyant, electrical sensation of 
passing along through English country on one's 
way to London on leave. 

I spent the train journey thinking over what 
I should do during my seven days. Time after 
time I mentally conjured up the forthcoming 
performance of catching the train at Paddington 
and gliding out of the shadows of the huge 
station into the sunlit country beyond — the 
rapid express journey down home, the drive 
out from the station, back in my own land 
again ! 

We got into London in pretty quick time, 
and I rapidly converted my dreams into facts. 



LONDON AND HOME 183 

Still in the same old trench clothes, with a 
goodly quantity of Flanders mud attached, I 
walked into Paddington station, and collared a 
seat in the train on Number i platform. Then, 
collecting a quantity of papers and magazines 
from the bookstalls, I prepared myself for en- 
joying to the full the two hours' journey dov/n 
home. 

I spent a gorgeous week in Warwickshire, 
during which time my friend came along down 
to stay a couple of days with me, bringing my 
missing pack along with him. He had had the 
joy of carrying it laden with shell cases across 
London, and taking it down with him to some- 
where near Aldershot, and finally bringing it to 
me without having kept any of the contents. 
. . . Such is a true friend. 

As this book deals with my wanderings in 
France I will not go into details of my happy 
seven days* leave. I now resume at the point 
where I was due to return to France. In spite 
of the joys of England as opposed to life in 
Flanders, yet a curious phenomenon presented 
itself at the end of my leave. I was anxious 
to get back. Strange, but true. Somehow one 



1 84 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

felt that slogging away out in the dismal fields 
of war was the real thing to do. If someone 
had offered me a nice, safe, comfortable job in 
England, I wouldn't have taken it. I claim no 
credit for this feeling of mine. I know every- 
one has the same. That buccaneering, rough 
and tumble life out there has its attractions. 
The spirit of adventure is in most people, and 
the desire and will to biff the Boches is in every- 
one, so there you are. 

I drifted back via London,' Dover, and Bou- 
logne, and thence up the same old stagnant line 
to Creme de Menthe. Once more back in the 
land of mud, bullets, billets, and star shells. 

It was the greyest of grey days when I ar- 
rived at my one-horse terminus. I got out at 
the ''station," and had a solitary walk along the 
empty, muddy lanes, back to the Transport 
Farm. 

Plodding along in the thin rain that was 
falling I thought of home, London, England, 
and then of the job before me. Another three 
months at least before any further chance of 
leave could come my way again. Evening was 
coming on. Across the flat, sombre country I 
could see the tall, swaying poplar trees stand- 



^^ 



i^^^^^^^^^m 



^^'^ »l*«i5 "^wr d'erthi^iiiiiS^^;^^!?^ 




.--J 



BACK AGAIN 187 

ing near the farm. Beyond lay the rough and 
rugged road which led to the Douve trenches. 

How nice that leave had been! To-morrow 
night I should be going along back to the trenches 
before Wulverghem. 



CHAPTER XXI 

BACK FROM LEAVE — THAT ''BLINKIN' MOON*' 

— ^JOHNSON *OLES — TOMMY AND **FRIGHTFUL- 

NESS" — EXPLORING EXPEDITION 

As I had expected, the battalion were just 
finishing their last days out in rest billets, and 
were going *'in" the following night. 

Reaction from leave set in for me with 
unprecedented violence. It was horrible 
weather, pouring with rain all the time, which 
made one's depression worse. 

Leave over; rain, ram, rain; trenches again, 
and the future looked like being perpetually 
the same, or perhaps worse. Yet, somehow or 
other, in these times of deep depression which 
come to everyone now and again, I cannot help 
smiling. It has always struck me as an amusing 
thing that the world, and all the human beings 
thereon, do get themselves into such curious 
and painful predicaments, and then spend the 
rest of the time wishing they could get out. 
i88 



THAT "BLINKIN' MOON" 189 

My reflections invariably brought me to 
the same conclusion, that here I was, caught 
up in the cogs of this immense, uncontrollable 
war machine, and like everyone else, had to, 
and meant to stick it out to the end. 

The next night we went through all the ap- 
proved formula for going into the trenches. 
Started at dusk, and got into our respective 
mud cavities a few hours later. I went all 
round the trenches again, looking to see that 
things were the same as when I left them, and, 
on the Colonel's instructions, started a series of 
alterations in several gun positions. There was 
one trench that was so obscured along its front 
by odd stumps of trees that I decided the only 
good spot for a machine gun was right at one 
end, on a road which led up to Messines. From 
here it would be possible for us to get an excel- 
lent field of fire. To have this gun on the road 
meant making an emplacement there somehow. 
That night we started scheming it out, and the 
next evening began work on it. It was a bright 
moonlight night, I remember, and my sergeant 
and I went out in front of our parapet, walked 
along the field and crept up the ditch a little 
way, considering the machine-gun possibilities 



I90 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

of the land. That moonlight feeling is very 
curious. You feel as if the enemy can see you 
clearly, and that all eyes in the opposite trench 
are turned on you. You can almost imagine a 
Boche smilingly taking an aim, and saying to a 
friend, *' We'll just let him come a bit closer 
first." Everyone who has had to go "out in 
front, " wiring, will know this feeling. As a mat- 
ter of fact, it is astonishing how little one can see 
of men in the moonlight, even when the trenches 
are very close together. One gets quite used to 
walking about freely in this light, going out in 
front of the parapet and having a look round. 
The only time that really makes one apprehen- 
sive is when some gang of men or other turn up 
from way back somewhere, and have come to 
assist in some operation near the enemy. They, 
being unfamihar with the caution needed, and 
unappreciative of what it's like to have neigh- 
bours who **hate" you sixty yards away, gen- 
erally bring trouble in their wake by one of the 
party shouting out in a deep bass or a shrill so- 
prano, " 'Ere, chuck us the 'ammer, 'Arry, " or 
something like that, following the remark up 
with a series of vulcan-like blows on the top of 
an iron post. Result : three star shells soar out 



AN UNLUCKY SHOT 191 

into the frosty air, and a burst of machine-gun 
fire skims over the top of your head. 

We made a very excellent and strong eux- 
placement on the road, and used it henceforth. 
I had a lot of bother with one gun in those 
trenches, which was placed at very nearly the 
left-hand end of the whole Hne. I had been 
obliged to fix the gun there, as it was very 
necessary for dominating a certain road. But 
when I took the place over from the previous 
battalion, I thought there might be difficulties 
about this gun position, and there were. The 
night before we had made our inspection of 
these trenches, a shell had landed right on top of 
the gun emplacement and had "outed" the 
whole concern, unfortunately killing two of the 
gun section belonging to the former battalion. 
For some reason or other that end of our line 
was always being shelled. Just in the same way 
as they plunked shells daily into St. Yvon, 
so they did here. Each morning, with hardly 
ever a miss, they shelled our trenches, but 
almost invariably in the same place: the left- 
hand end. The difference between St. Yvon and 
this place was, however, that here they always 
shelled with ''heavies." Right back at the 



192 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

Douve farm a mile away, the thundering crash of 
one of these shells would rattle all the windows 
and make one say, "Where did that one go?'* 

All round that neighbourhood it seemed to 
have been the fashion, past and present, to 
use the largest shells. In going along the Douve 
one day, I made a point of measuring and 
examining several of the holes. I took a 
photograph of one, with my cap resting on one 
side of it, to show the relative proportion and 
give an idea of the size. It was about fourteen 
feet in diameter, and seven feet deep. The 
largest shell hole I have ever seen was over 
twenty feet in diameter and about twelve feet 
deep. The largest hole I have seen, made by 
an implement of war, though not by a gun or 
a howitzer, was larger still, and its size was 
colossal. I refer to a hole made by one of our 
trench mortars, but regret that I did not mea- 
sure it. Round about our farm were a series 
of holes of immense size, showing clearly the 
odium which that farm had incurred, and was 
incurring; but, whilst I was in it, nothing came 
in through the roof or walls. I have since learnt 
that that old farm is no more, having been 
shelled out of existence. All my sketches on 



TOMMY AND " FRIGHTFULNESS " 193 

those plaster walls form part of a slack heap, 
surrounded by a moat. 

Well, this persistent shelling of the left-hand 
end of our trenches meant a persistent readjust- 
ment of our parapets, and putting things back 
again. Each morning the Boches would knock 
things down, and each evening we would put 
them up again. Our soldiers are only amused 
by this procedure. Their himiorously cynical 
outlook at the Boche temper renders them im- 
pervious to anything the Germans can ever do or 
think of. Their outlook towards a venomous 
German attempt to do something "frightfully" 
nasty, is very similar to a large and powerful 
nurse dealing with a fractious child — sort of: 
**Now, then, Master Frankie, you mustn't kick 
and scream like that. " 

One can almost see a group of stolid, unimagi- 
native, non-humorous Germans, taking all 
things with their ridiculous seriousness, sending 
off their shells, and pulling hateful faces at the 
same time. You can see our men sending over 
a real stiff, quietening answer, with a sporting 
twinkle in the eye, perhaps jokingly remarking, 
as a shell is pushed into the gun, *' 'Ere*s one for 
their Officer's Mess, Bert." 
a 



194 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

On several evenings I had to go round and 
arrange for the reconstruction of the ruined 
parapet or squashed-in dug-outs. It was dur- 
ing one of these Httle episodes that I felt the 
spirit of my drawing, "There goes our blinking 
parapet again, " which I did sometime later. I 
never went about looking for ideas for drawings ; 
the whole business of the war seemed to come 
before me in a series of pictures. Jokes used to 
stick out of all the horrible discomfort, some- 
thing like the points of a harrow would stick 
into you if you slept on it. 

I used to visit all the trenches, and look up 
the various company commanders and platoon 
commanders in the same way as I did at St. 
Yvon. I got a splendid idea of all the details 
of our position; all the various ways from one 
part of it to another. As I walked back to the 
Douve farm at night, nearly always alone, I 
used to keep on exploring the wide tract of land 
that lay behind our trenches. "I'll have a look 
at that old cottage up on the right to-night,'* 
I used to say to myself, and later, when the 
time came for me to walk back from the trenches, 
I would go off at a new angle across the plain, 
and make for my objective. Once inside, and 



EXPLORING EXPEDITION 195 

feeling out of view of the enemy, I would go 
round the deserted rooms and lofts by the 
light of a few matches, and if the house looked 
as if it would prove of interest, I would return 
the next night with a candle-end, and make an 
examination of the whole thing. They are all 
very much alike, these houses in Flanders; all 
seem to contain the same mangled remains of 
simple, homely occupations. Strings of onions, 
old straw hats, and clogs, mixed with an 
assortment of cheap clothing, with perhaps 
here and there an umbrella or a top hat. That 
is about the class of stuff one found in them. 
After one of these expeditions I would go on 
back across the plain, along the corduroy boards 
or by the bank of the river, to our farm. 



CHAPTER XXII 

A DAYLIGHT STALK — ^THE DISUSED TRENCH — 

"did they SEE ME?" — ^A GOOD SNIPING 

POSITION 

Our farm was, as I have remarked, a mile from 
the trenches at the nearest part, and about a 
mile and a half from the furthest. Wulverghem 
was about half a mile behind the farm. 

As time went on at these Douve trenches, 
I became more and more familiar with the 
details of the surroimding country, for each day 
I used to creep out of the farm, and when I had 
crossed the moat by a small wooden bridge at 
the back, I would go off into the country nearby 
looking at everything. One day the Colonel 
expressed a wish to know whether it was possible 
to get up into our trenches in daytime without 
being seen. Of course anyone could have gone 
to the trenches, and been momentarily seen here 
and there, and could have done so fairly safely 
and easily by simply walking straight up, taking 

196 



A DAYLIGHT STALK 197 

advantage of what little cover there was; but 
to get right up without showing at all, was rather 
a poser, as all cover ceased about a hundred 
yards behind the trenches. 

The idea of trying attracted me. One morn- 
ing I crept along the ragged hedge, on the far 
side of the moat which led to the river, and 
started out for the trenches. I imagined a 
German with a powerful pair of binoculars 
looking down on the plain from the Messines 
Hill, with nothing better to do than to see if he 
could spot someone walking about. Keeping 
this possibility well in mind, I started my stalk 
up to the trenches with every precaution. 

I crept along amongst the trees bordering 
the river for a considerable distance, but as one 
neared the trenches, these got wider apart, and 
as the river wound about a lot there were places 
where to walk from one tree to the next, one 
had to walk parallel to the German trenches and 
quite exposed, though, of cotirse, at a consider- 
able range off. I still bore in mind my imagi- 
nary picture of the gentleman with binoculars, 
though, so I got down near the water's edge and 
moved along, half-concealed by the bank. Soon 
I reached the farms, and by dodging about 



198 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

amongst the scattered shrubs and out-houses, 
here and there crawling up a ditch, I got into 
one of the farm buildings. I sat in it amongst 
a pile of old clothes, empty tins, and other odd- 
ments, and had a smoke, thinking the while on 
how I could get from these farms across the last 
bit of open space which was the most difl&cult 
of all. 

I finished my cigarette, and began the stalk 
again. Another difficulty presented itself. I 
found that it was extremely difficult to cross 
from the second last farm to the last one, as the 
ground was completely open, and rather sloped 
down towards the enemy. This was not ap- 
parent when looking at the place at night, for 
then one never bothers about concealment, and 
one walks anywhere and anyhow. But now 
the question was, how to do it. I crept down to 
the river again, and went along there for a bit, 
looking for a chance of leaving it under cover 
for the farm. 

Coming to a narrow, cart-rutted lane a little 
farther on, I was just starting to go up it when, 
suddenly, a bright idea struck me. An old 
zigzag communication trench (a relic of a by- 
gone period) left the lane on the right, and ap- 



" DID THEY SEE ME ? " 199 

parently ran out across the field to within a few 
yards of the farthest farm. Once there, I had 
only a hundred yards more to do. 

I entered the communication trench. It was 
just a deep, narrow slot cut across the field, 
and had, I should imagine, never been used. I 
think the enormous amount of water in it had 
made it a useless work. I saw no sign of it ever 
having been used. A fearful trench it was, with 
a deep deposit of dark green filthy, watery mud 
from end to end. 

This, I could see, was the only way up to the 
farm, so I made the best of it. I resigned my- 
self to getting thoroughly wet through. Quite 
unavoidable. I plunged into this unwholesome 
clay ditch and went along, each step taking me 
up to my thighs in soft dark ooze, whilst here 
and there the water was so deep as to force me 
to scoop out holes in the clay at the side when, 
by leaning against the opposite side, with my 
feet in the holes, I could slowly push my way 
along. In time I got to the other end, and sat 
down to think a bit. As I sat, a bullet suddenly 
whacked into the clay parapet alongside of me, 
which stimulated my thinking a bit. ''Had I 
been seen?" I tried to find out, and reassure 



200 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

myself before going on. I put my hat on top of 
a stick and brought it up above the parapet at 
two or three points to try and attract another 
shot; but no, there wasn't another, so I con- 
cluded the first one had been accidental, and 
went on my way again. By wriggHng along 
behind an undulation in the field, and then 
creeping from one tree to another, I at last 
managed to get up into our reserve trenches, 
where I obtained my first daylight, close-up 
view of our trenches, German trenches, and 
general landscape; all laid out in panorama style. 

In front of me were our front-line trenches, 
following the line of the little stream which ran 
into the Douve on the right. On the far side of 
the stream the ground gently rose in a long slope 
up to Messines, where you could see a shattered 
mass of red brick buildings with the old grey 
tower in the middle. At a distance of from 
about two to four hundred yards away lay the 
German trenches, parallel to ours, their barbed 
wire glistening in the morning sunlight. 

*'This place I'm in is a pretty good place 
for a sniper to hitch up, " I thought to myself. 
*'Can see everything there is to be seen from 
here." 



A SNIPER'S POST 201 

After a short stocktaking of the whole scene, 
I turned and wallowed my way back to the farm. 
Some few days later they did make a sniper's 
post of that spot, and a captain friend of mine, 
with whom I spent many quaint and dismal 
nights in St. Yvon, occupied it. He was the 
*'star" shot of the battalion, an expert sniper, 
and, I believe, made quite a good bag. 



CHAPTER XXIII 



OUR MOATED FARM— WULVERGHEM — ^THE CURB'S 

HOUSE — ^A SHATTERED CHURCH — ^MORE 

"heavies" — ^A FARM ON FIRE 



Our farm was one of a cluster of three or four, 
each approximately a couple of hundred yards 
apart. It was perhaps the largest and the most 
preserved of the lot. It was just the same sort 
of shape as all Flemish farms — a long building 
running round three sides of the yard, in the 
middle of which there was an oblong tank, used 
for collecting all the rubbish and drainage. 

The only difference about our farm was, we 
had a moat. Very superior to all the cluster 
in consequence. Sometime or other the moat 
must have been very effective; but when I was 
there, only about a quarter of it contained water. 
The other three-quarters was a sort of bog, or 
marsh, its surface broken up by large shell 
holes. On the driest part of this I discovered a 

202 







TAKEN AT ST. WON, XMAS DAY, I914 

OFFICERS, 2XD LIEUTEXANT I 

BAIRNSFATHERS, BRUCE I 

HOLES, SHELL I 



FRENCH GRAVES 205 

row of graves, their rough crosses all battered 
and bent down. I just managed to discern the 
names inscribed ; they were all French. Names 
of former heroes who had participated in some 
action or other months before. Going out into 
the fields behind the farm, I foimd more French 
graves, enclosed in a rectangular graveyard 
that had been roughly made with barbed wire 
and posts, each grave surmoujated with the 
dead soldier's hat. Months of rough wintry 
weather had beaten down the faded cloth cap 
into the clay mound, and had started the obHtera- 
tion of the lettering on the cross. A few more 
months ; and cross, mound, and hat will all have 
merged back into the fields of Flanders. 

Beyond these fields, about half a mile distant, 
lay Wulverghem. Looking at what you can 
see of this village from the Douve farm, it 
looks exceedingly pretty and attractive. A 
splendid old church tower could be seen between 
the trees, and roimd about it were clustered the 
red roofs of a fair-sized village. It has, to my 
mind, a very nice situation. In the days before 
the war it must have been a pleasing place to 
live in. I went to have a look at it one day. 
It's about as fine a sample of what these Prus- 



2o6 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

sians have brought upon Belgian villages as any 
I have seen. The village street is one long ruin. 
On either side of the road, all the houses are 
merely a collection of broken tiles and shattered 
bricks and framework. Huge shell holes punc- 
tuate the street. I had seen a good many 
mutilated villages before this, but I remember 
thinking this was as bad, if not worse, than any 
I had yet seen. I determined to explore some 
of the houses and the church. 

I went into one house opposite the church. 
It had been quite a nice house once, containing 
about ten rooms. It was full of all sorts of 
things. The evacuation had evidently been 
hurried. I went into the front right-hand room 
first, and soon discovered by the books and 
pictiu*es that this had been the Cure's house. 
It was in a terrible state. Religious books in 
French and Latin lay about the floor in a vast 
disorder, some with the cover and half the book 
torn off by the effect of an explosion. Pictures 
illustrating Bible scenes, images, and other pro- 
bably cherished objects, smashed and ruined, 
hung about the walls, or fragmentary portions 
of them lay littered about on the floor. 

A shell hole of large proportions had rent 



THE CURE'S HOUSE 207 

a gash in the outer front wall, leaving the 
window woodwork, bricks, and wall-paper piled 
up in a heap on the floor, partially obliterating 
a large writing-desk. Private papers lay about 
in profusion, all dirty, damp, and muddy. The 
remains of a window blind and half its roller 
himg in the space left by the absent window, and 
mournfully tapped against the remnant of the 
framework in the light, cold breeze that was 
blowing in from outside. Place this scene in 
your imagination in some luxuriant country 
vicarage in England, and you will get an idea of 
what Belgium has had to put up with from these 
Teutonic madmen. I went into all the rooms; 
they were in very much the same state. In the 
back part of the house the litter was added to by 
empty tins and old military equipment. Sol- 
diers had evidently had to live there temporarily 
on their way to some part of our lines. I heard 
a movement in the room opposite the one I had 
first gone into ; I went back and saw a cat sitting 
in the comer amongst a pile of leather-backed 
books. I made a movement towards it, but 
with a cadaverous, wild glare at me, it sprang 
through the broken window and disappeared. 
The church was just opposite the priest's 



208 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

house. I went across the road to look at it. 
It was a large reddish-grey stone building, 
pretty old, I should say, and surrounded by a 
graveyard. Shell holes everywhere; the old, 
grey gravestones and slabs cracked and stick- 
ing about at odd angles. As 1 entered by the 
vestry door I noticed the tower was fairly all 
right, but that was about the only part that was. 
Belgium and Northern France are full of 
churches which have been sadly knocked about, 
and all present very much the same appearance. 
I will describe this one to give you a sample. 
I went through the vestry into the main part of 
the church, deciding to examine the vestry later. 
The roof had had most of the tiles blown off, and 
underneath them the roofing-boards had been 
shattered into long narrow strips. Fixed at one 
end to what was left of the rafters they flapped 
slowly up and down in the air like lengths of 
watch-spring. Below, on the floor of the church, 
the chairs were tossed about in the greatest 
possible disorder, and here and there a dozen 
or so had been pulverized by the fall of an 
immense block of masonry. Highly coloured 
images were lying about, broken and twisted. 
The altar candelabra and stained-glass win- 



A SHATTERED CHURCH 209 

dows lay in a heap together behind a pulpit, 
the front of which had been knocked off by 
a falling pillar. One could walk about near 
some of the broken images, and pick up little 
candles and trinkets which had been put in and 
aroimd the shrine, off the floor and from among 
the mass of broken stones and mortar. The 
vestry, I foimd, was almost complete. Nearly 
trodden out of recognition on the floor, I found 
a bright coloured hand-made altar cloth, which 
I then had half a mind to take away with me, 
and post it back to some parson in England to 
put in his church. I only refrained from carry- 
ing out this plan as I feared that the difficulties 
of getting it away would be too great. I left 
the church, and looked about some of the other 
houses, but none proved as pathetically interest- 
ing as the church and the vicar's house, so I 
took my way out across the fields again towards 
the Douve farm. 

Not a soul about anyivhere. Wulverghem 
lay there, empty, wrecked, and deserted. I 
walked along the river bank for a bit, and had 
got about two hundred yards from the farm 
when the quiet morning was interrupted in 
the usual way by shelling. Deep-toned, earth' 



210 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

shaking crashes broke into the quiet peaceful 
air. "Just in the same place," I observed to 
myself as I walked along behind our left-hand 
trenches. I could see the cloud of black smoke 
after each one landed, and knew exactly where 

they were. ''Just in the same old^ hullo! 

hullo!" With that rotating, gurgling whistle a 
big one had just sailed over and landed about 
fifty yards from our farm! I nipped in across 
the moat, through the courtyard, and explained 
to the others where it had landed. We all 
remained silent, waiting for the next. Here 
it came, gurgling along through the air; a pause, 
then *'Crumph!" — nearly in the same place 
again, but, if anything, nearer the next farm. 
The Colonel moved to the window and looked 
out. *' They're after that farm, " he said, as he 
turned away slowly and struck a match by the 
fireplace to light his pipe with. About half a 
dozen shells whizzed along in close succession, 
and about four hit and went into the roof of the 
next farm. 

Presently I looked out of the window again, 
and saw a lot of our men moving out of the farm 
and across the road into the field beyond. 
There was a reserve trench here, so they went 



A FARM ON FIRE 211 

into it. I looked again, and soon saw the reason. 
Dense columns of smoke were coming out of the 
straw roof, and soon the whole place was a 
blazing ruin. Nobody in the least perturbed; 
we all turned away from the window and won- 
dered how soon they'd "have our farm." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

THAT RATION FATIGUE — SKETCHES IN REQUEST 

— BAILLEUL — BATHS AND LUNATICS — 

HOW TO CONDUCT A WAR 

I HEY seemed to me long, dark, dis- 
mal days, those days spent in the 
Douve trenches ; longer, darker, and 
more dismal than the Plugstreet 
ones. Night after night I crossed 
the dreary mud flat, passed 
the same old wretched farms, 
and went on with the same 
old trench routine. We all considered the 
trenches a pretty rotten outfit; but every- 
one was fully prepared to accept far rottener 
things than that. There was never the least 
sign of flagging determination in any man 
there, and I am sure you could say the same 
of the whole front. 

And, really, some jobs on some nights 

212 




RATION FATIGUE 213 

wanted a lot of beating for undesirability. 
Take the ration party's job, for instance. 
Think of the rottenest, wettest, windiest 
winter's night you can remember, and add to 
it this bleak, muddy, war-worn plain with its 
ruined farms and shell-torn lonely road. Then 
think of men, leaving the trenches at dusk, going 
back about a mile and a half, and bringing sun- 
dry large and heavy boxes up to the trenches, 
pausing now and again for a rest, and ignoring 
the intermittent crackling of rifle fire in the 
darkness, and the sharp ^'phit^^ of bullets hitting 
the mud all around. Think of that as your por- 
tion each night and every night. When you 
have finished this job, the rest you get consists of 
coiling yourself up in a damp dug-out. Night 
after night, week after week, month after month, 
this job is done by thousands. As one sits 
in a brilliantly illuminated, comfortable, warm 
theatre, having just come from a cosy and luxu- 
rious restaurant, just think of some poor devil 
half-way along those corduroy boards struggling 
with a crate of biscuits; the ration "dump" 
behind, the trenches on in front. When he 
has finished he will step down into the muddy 
slush of a trench, and take his place with the 



214 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

rest, who, if need be, will go on doing that job 
for another ten years, without thinking of an 
alternative. The Germans made a vast mistake 
when they thought they had gauged the English 
temperament. 



We went "in" and "out" of those trenches 
many times. During these intervals of "out" 
I began to draw pictures more and more. It 
had become known that I drew these trench 
pictures, not only in oiu* battalion but in several 
others, and at various headquarters I got re- 
quests for four or five drawings at a time. 
About three weeks after I returned from leave, 
I had to move my billeting quarters. I went to 
a farm called "La petite Monque"; I don't 
know how it's really spelled, but that's what the 
name sounded like. Here I lived with the 
officers of A Company, and a jolly pleasant crew 
they were. We shared a mess together, and 
had one big room and one small room between 
us. There were six of us altogether. The 
Captain had the little room and the bed in it, 
whilst we all slept round the table on the floor 
in the big room. Here, in the daytime, when I 



BATHS AND LUNATICS 215 

was not out v/ith the machine-gun sections, I 
drew several pictures. The Brigadier- General 
of our brigade took a particular fancy to one 
which he got from me. The divisional head- 
quarters had half a dozen ; whilst I did two sets 
of four each for two officers in the regiment. 

Sometimes we would go for walks around 
the country, and occasionally made an excursion 
as far as Bailleul, about five miles away. 
Bailleul held one special attraction for us. 
There were some wonderfully good baths there. 
The fact that they were situated in the lunatic 
asylum rather added to their interest. 

The first time I went there, one of the sub- 
alterns in A Company was my companion. 
We didn't particularly want to walk all the 
way, so we decided to get down to the high road 
as soon as we could, and try and get a lift in a 
car. With great luck we managed to stop a 
fairly empty car, and got a lift. It was occu- 
pied by a couple of French soldiers who willingly 
rolled us along into Bailleul. Once there, we 
walked through the town and out to the asylum 
close by. I expect by now the lunatics have 
been called up under the group system; but in 
those days they were there, and pulled faces at 



2i6 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

us as we walked up the wide gravel drive to the 
grand portals of the building. They do make 
nice asylums over there. This was a sort of 
Chatsworth or Blenheim to look at. Inside 
it was fitted up in very great style: long car- 
peted corridors opening out into sort of domed 
winter gardens, something like the snake house 
at the Zoo. We came at length to a particularly 
lofty, domed hall, from which opened several 
large bathrooms. Splendid places. A row of 
large white enamelled baths along one wall, cork 
mats on the floor, and one enormous central 
water supply, hot and cold, which you diverted 
to whichever bath you chose by means of a long 
flexible rubber pipe. Soap, sponges, towels, 
ad lib. You can imagine what this palatial 
water grotto meant to us, when, at other times, 
our best bath was of saucepan capacity, taken 
on the cold stone floor of a farm room. We lay 
and boiled the trenches out of our systems in 
that palatial asylum. Glorious! lying back in a 
long white enamel bath in a warm foggy atmos- 
phere of steam, watching one's toes floating in 
front. When this was over, and we had been 
grimaced off the premises by "inmates" at the 
windows, we went back into Bailleul and made 



HOW TO CONDUCT A WAR 217 



for the "Faucon d'Or, " an old hotel that stand? 
in the square. Here we had a civilized meal 
Tablecloth, knives, forks, spoons, waited on — • 
all that sort of thing. You could have quite 
a good dinner here if you liked. A cunous 
thought oc- 
curred to me 
then, and as 
it occurs 
again to me 
now I write 
it down. 
Here it is: 
If the au- 
thorities 
gave one per- 
mission, one 
could have 
rooms at the 
Faucon d'Or 
and go to the war daily. It would be quite 
possible to, say, have an early dinner, table 
d'hote (with, say, a half-bottle of Salmon and 
Gluckstein), get into one's car and go to the 
trenches, spend the night sitting in a small damp 
hole in the grotmd, or glaring over the parapet, 







2i8 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

and after "stand to" in the morning, go back 
in the car in time for breakfast. Of course, if 
there was an attack, the car would have to wait 
— that's all; and of course you would come to 
an understanding with the hotel management 
that the terms were for meals taken in the hotel, 
and that if you had to remain in the trenches 
the terms must be reduced accordingly. 

A curious war this; you can be at a table 
d'hote dinner, a music-hall entertainment after- 
wards, and within half an hour be enveloped in 
the most uncomfortable, soul-destroying trench 
ever known. I said you can be; I wish I could 
say you always are. 

The last time I was at Bailleul, not many 
months ago, I heard that we could no longer 
have baths at the asylum; I don't know why. 
I think some one told me why, but I can't re- 
member. Whether it was the baths had been 
shelled, or whether the lunatics objected, it is 
impossible for me to say; but there's the fact, 
anyway "Na Pu" baths at Bailleul. 



CHAPTER XXV 

GETTING STALE — LONGING FOR CHANGE — WE 

LEAVE THE DOUVE — ON THE MARCH — 

SPOTTED FEVER— TEN DAYS' REST 

The Douve trenches claimed our battalion 
for a long time. We went in and out with 
monotonous regularity, and I went on with my 
usual work with machine guns. The whole 
place became more and more depressing to me, 
and yet, somehow, I have got more ideas for my 
pictures from this part of the line than any 
other since or before. One's mental outlook, I 
I find, varies very much from day to day. Some 
days there were on which I felt quite merry and 
bright, and strode along on my nightly rambles, 
calmly ignoring bullets as they whisked about. 
At other times I felt thoroughly depressed and 
weary. As time wore on at the Douve, I felt 
myself getting into a state when it took more 
and more out of me to keep up my vigour, and 
219 



220 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

suppress my imagination. There were times 
when I experienced an almost irresistible desire 
to lie down and sleep during some of m}^ night 
walks. I would feel an overwhelming desire to 
ignore the rain and mud, and just coil up in a 
farm amongst the empty tins and rubbish and 
sleep, sleep, sleep. I looked forward to sleep 
to drown out the worries of the daily and nightly 
life. In fact, I was slowly getting ill, I suppose. 
The actual rough and ready life didn't trouble 
me at all. I was bothered with the idea of 
the whole thing. The unnatural atmosphere of 
things that one likes and looks upon as pleasing, 
peaqeful objects in ordinary times, seemed now 
to obsess me. It's hard to describe; but the 
following gives a faint idea of my feelings at 
this time. Instead of deriving a sense of peace 
and serenity from picturesque country farms, 
old trees, setting suns, and singing birds, here 
was this wretched war business hashing up the 
whole thing. A farm was a place where you 
expected a shell through the wall any minute; 
a tree was the sort of thing the gunners took 
to range on; a sunset indicated a quantity of 
light in which it was unsafe to walk abroad. 
Birds singing were a mockery. All this sort 



LONGING FOR CHANGE 223 

of thing bothered me, and was slowly reducing 
my physical capacity to "stick it out." But 
I determined I would stick to the ship, and so I 
did. The periodical going out to billets and 
making merry there was a thing to look forward 
to. Everyone comes up in a rebound of spirits 
on these occasions. In the evenings there, 
sitting round the table, writing letters, talking, 
and occasionally having other members of the 
regiment in to a meal or a call of some sort, 
made things quite pleasant. There was always 
the post to look forward to. Quite a thrill went 
round the room when the door opened and a 
sergeant came in with an armful of letters and 
parcels. 

Yet during all this latter time at the Douve 
I longed for a change in trench life. Some 
activity, some march to somewhere or other; 
anything to smash up the everlasting stagnant 
appearance of life there. Suddenly the change 
came. We were told we had to go out a day 
before one of our usual sessions in the trenches 
was ended. We were all immensely pleased. 
We didn't know where we were bound for, but, 
anyway, we were going. This news revived me 
enormously, and everything looked brighter. 



224 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

The departure-night came, and company by- 
company we handed over to a battalion that 
had come to relieve us, and collected on the 
road leading back to Neuve Eglise. I handed 
over all my gun emplacements to the in-coming 
machine-gun officer, and finally collected my 
various sections with all their tackle on the road 
as well. We merely marched back to our usual 
billets that night, but next morning had orders 
to get all our baggage ready for the transport 
wagons. We didn't know where we were going, 
but at about eleven o'clock in the morning we 
started off on the march, and soon realized that 
our direction was Bailleul. 

On a fine, clear, warm spring day we marched 
along, all in the best of spirits, songs of all sorts 
being sung one after the other. As I marched 
along in the rear of the battalion, at the head of 
my machine-gun section, I selected items from 
their repertoire and had them sung "by re- 
quest. " I had some astonishingly fine mouth- 
organists in my section. When we had In the 
Trail of the Lonesome Pine sung by half the 
section, with mouth-organ accompaniment by 
the other half, the effect was enormous. We 
passed several battalions of my regiment on 



FINDING BILLETS 225 

the road, evidently bound for the Armentieres 
direction. Shouts, jokes, and much mirth 
showed the kindred spirits of the passing col- 
umns. All battaHons of the same regiment, all 
more or less recruited in the same counties. 
When we reached Bailleul we halted in the 
Square, and then I learned we were to be billeted 
there. There was apparently some difficulty 
in getting billets, and so I was faced with the 
necessity of finding some for my section myself. 
The transport officer was in the same fix; he 
wanted a large and commodious farm whenever 
he hitched up anywhere, as he had a crowd of 
horses, wagons, and men to put up somehow. 
He and I decided to start out and look for billets 
on our own. 

I found a temporary rest for my section in an 
old brickyard on the outskirts of the town, and 
the transport officer and I started out to look for 
a good farm which we could appropriate. 

Bailleul stands on a bit of a hill, so you can 
get a wide and extensive view of the country 
from there. We could see several farms perched 
about in the country. We fixed on the nearest, 
and walked out to it. No luck; they were 
willing to have us, but it wasn't big enough. 

X5 



226 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

We tried another, same result. I then sug- 
gested we should separate, and each try differ- 
ent roads, and thus we should get one quicker. 
This we did, I going off up a long straight road, 
and finally coming to a most promising looking 
edifice on one side — a real large size in farms. 

I went into the yard and walked across the 
dirty cobbles to the front door. The people 
were most pleasant. I didn*t understand a 
word they said; but when a person pushes a 
flagon of beer into one of your hands and an 
apple into the other, one concludes he means 
to be pleasant, anyway. 

I mumbled a lot of jargon to them for some 
time, and I really believe they saw that I 
wanted to use their place for a billet. The 
owner, a man of about forty-five, then started a 
long and hardy discussion right at me. He put 
on a serious face at intervals, so I guessed there 
was something rather important he was trying 
to convey to me. I was saved from giving my 
answer by catching sight of my pal, the trans- 
port officer, crossing the yard. He came in. 
*'I've brought Jean along to talk," he an- 
nounced. (Jean was our own battalion inter- 
preter.) "I can't find a place; but this looks 



SPOTTED FEVER! 22-] 

all right.'* Jean and the owner at once dived 
ofiE into a labyrinth of unintelHgible words, from 
which they emerged five minutes later. We sat 
aroimd and listened. Jean turned to us and 
remarked: "They have got fever here, he says, 
what you call the spotted fever— how you say, 
spotted fever?— and this farm is out of bounds. " 
"Oh! spotted fever! I see!" we both said, and 
sHd away out of that farm pretty quick. So 
that was what that farmer was trying to say to 
me: spotted fever! 

I went down the road wondering whether 
cerebral meningitis germs preferred apples or 
beer, or perhaps they liked both; awful thought! 
We went back to our original selection and 
decided to somehow or other squeeze into 
the farm which we thought too small. Many 
hours later we got the transport and the ma- 
chine-gun section fixed up. We spent two 
nights there. On the second day I went up into 
Bailleul. Walking along in the Square, looking 
at the shops and market stalls, I ran into the 
brigade machine-gun officer. 

"Topping about our brigade, isn't it?" he 

said. 

"What's topping?" I asked. 



228 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

''Why, we're going to have about ten days' 
rest; we clear off out of here to-morrow to a 
village about three miles away, and our bat- 
talion will billet there. Where we go after that 
I don't know; but, anyway, ten days' rest. 
Ten days' rest! 1" 

''Come and split one at the Faucon d'Or?" 

"No thanks, I've just had one. '* 

"Well, come and have another." 



CHAPTER XXVI 

A PLEASANT CHANGE — SUZETTE, BERTHE, AND 
MARTHE — "la JEUNE FILLE FAROUCHE " — 

andr6 

On the next morning we left Bailleul, and the 
whole of our battalion marched off down one 
of the roads leading out into the country in 
a westerly direction. The weather was now 
excellent; so what with a prospect of a rest, 
fine weather, and the departure from the Wul- 
verghem trenches, we were all very merry 
and bright, and "going strong" all round. It 
seemed to us as if we had come out of some dark 
wet under-world into a bright, wholesome local- 
ity, suitable for the habitation of man. 

Down the long, straight, dusty road we 
marched, hop yards and bright-coloured fields 
on either side, here and there passing prosperous- 
looking farms and estaminets: what a pleasant 
change it was from that ruined, dismal jungle 
229 



230 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

we had so recently left! About three or four 
miles out we came to a village; the main road 
ran right through it, forming its principal 
street. On either side small lanes ran out at 
right angles into the different parts of the village. 
We received the order to halt, and soon learned 
that this was the place where we were to have 
our ten days* rest. A certain amount of billets 
had been arranged for, but, as is generally the 
case, the machine-gun section have to search 
around for themselves; an advantage really, as 
they generally find a better crib this way than 
if somebody else found it for them. As soon as 
we were "dismissed," I started off on a billet 
search. The transport officer was again with 
me on the same quest. We separated, and each 
searched a different part of the village. The 
first house I went into was a dismal failure. An 
old woman of about eighty-four opened the door 
about six inches, and was some time before she 
permitted the aperture to widen sufficiently to 
allow me to go inside the house. A most dingy, 
poky sort of a place, so I cleared off to search 
for something better. As I crossed the farm- 
yard behind, my servant, who had been con- 
ducting a search on his own, suddenly appeared 



FIXED UP 231 

round the corner of the large bam at the end 
of the yard, and came towards me. 

**I've foimd a place over 'ere, Sir, I expect 
you'Ulike." 

"Where?" I asked. 

"This way, Sir!" and he led the way across 
a field to a gate, which we climbed. We then 
went down a sort of back lane to the village, and 
turned in at a small wicket-gate leading to a 
row of cottages. He led me up to one in the 
centre, and knocked at the door. A woman 
opened it, and I told her what I was looking for. 
She seemed quite keen for us to go there, and 
asked if there was any one else to come there 
with me. I told her the transport officer would 
be coming there too, and our two servants. She 
quite agreed to this, and showed me the rooms 
we could have. They were extremely small, 
but we decided to have them. "Them" con- 
sisted of one bedroom, containing two beds, the 
size of the room being about fourteen feet by 
eight, and the front kitchen-sitting-room place, 
which was used by everybody in the house, and 
was about twice the size of the bedroom. I 
went away and found the transport officer, 
brought him back and showed him the place. 



2Z2 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

He thought it a good spot, so we arranged to 
fix up there. 

Our servants started in to put things right 
for us, get our baggage there, and so on, whilst 
I went off to see to billets for the machine-gun 
section. I had got them a pretty good barn, 
attached to the farm I first called at, but I 
wanted to go and see that it was really large 
enough and suitable when they had all got in 
and spread themselves. I found that it did suit 
pretty well. The space was none too large, but 
I felt sure we wouldn't find a better. There was 
a good field for all the limbers and horses ad- 
joining, so on the whole it was quite a convenient 
place. The section had already got to work 
with their cooking things, and had a fire going 
out in the field. Those gunners were a very 
self-contained, happy throng; they all lived 
together like a family, and were all very keen 
on their job. 

I returned to my cottage to see how things 
were progressing. My man had unrolled my 
valise, and put all my things out and about in 
the bedroom. I took off all my equipment, 
which I was still wearing — pack, haversacks, 
revolver, binoculars, map case, etc., and sat 



SUZETTE 233 

down in the kitchen to take stock of the situa- 
tion. I now saw what the family consisted of; 
and by airing my feeble French, I found out 
who they were and what they did. The woman 
who had come to the door was the wife of a 
painter and decorator, who had been called up, 
and was in a French regiment somewhere in 
Alsace. 

Another girl who was there was a friend, and 
really lived next door with her sister, but owing 
to overcrowding, due to our servants and some 
French relatives, she spent most of her time in 
the house I was in. 

The owner of the place was Madame Charlet- 
Flaw, Christian name Suzette. The other two 
girls were, respectively, Berthe and Martha. 
Ages of all three in the order I have mentioned 
them were, I should say, twenty-eight, twenty- 
four, and twenty. The place had, I found, been 
used as billets before. I discovered this in two 
ways. 

Firstly: On the mantelpiece over the old 
stove I saw a collection of many kinds of regi- 
mental badges, with a quantity of English 
magazines. Secondly, after I had been talking 
for some time, Suzette answered my remarks 



234 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

with one of her stock English sentences, picked 
up from some former lodgers, "And very nice 
too, " a phrase much in vogue at that time. 

The transport officer, who had been out seeing 
about something or other, soon returned, and 
with him came the regimental doctor, who had 
got his billets all right, but had come along to 
see how we were fixed up. A real good chap 
he was, one of the best. All six of us now sat 
about in the kitchen and talked over things in 
general. We were a very cheery group. The 
transport officer, doctor, and myself were all 
thoroughly in the mood for enjoying this ten 
days' rest. To live amongst ordinary people 
again, and see the life of even a village, was 
refreshing to us. We had a pretty easy after- 
noon, and all had tea in that kitchen, after 
which I went out and round to look up my old 
pals in A Company. They had, I found, got 
hold of the Cure's house, the village parson's 
rectory, in fact. It was a square, plain-looking 
house, standing very close to the church, and 
they all seemed very comfortable there. The 
Cure himself and his housekeeper only had three 
rooms reserved for themselves, the rest being 
handed over to the officers of A Company. I 



"THE YOUNG WILD GIRL" 235 

stayed round there for a bit, having a talk and a 
smoke, and we each of us remarked in turn, 
about every five minutes, what a top-hole thing 
it was that we had got this ten days' rest. 

I then went back to our cottage, where I had 
a meal with the transport officer, conversing 
the while with Suzette, Berthe, and Marthe. I 
don't know which I liked the best of these three, 
they were all so cheery and hospitable. Marthe 
was the most interesting from the pictorial 
point of view. She was so gipsy-like to look 
at: brown-skinned, large dark eyes, exceeding 
bright, with a sort of sparkling, wild look about 
her. I called her ' ^ La jeunefille farouche ' ' (looked 
this up first before doing so) , and she was alwa3^s 
called this afterwards. It means "the young 
wild girl"; at least I hope it means that. The 
doctor came back again after dinner, and we all 
proceeded to fill the air in the small kitchen 
wth songs and tobacco-smoke. The transport 
officer was a "Corona Corona " expert, and there 
he would sit with his feet up on the rail at the 
side of the stove, smoking one of these zeppelins 
of a cigar, till we all went to bed. 

There was an heir to the estate in that cot- 
tage — one Andre, Suzette 's son, aged about five. 



236 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

He went to bed early, and slept with wonderful 
precision and persistence whilst we were making 
noise enough to wake the Cure a hundred yards 
away. But, when we went to bed, this little 
demon saw fit to wake, and continue a series of 
noises for several hours. He slept in a small cot 
alongside Suzette's bed, so it was her job, and 
not mine, to smack his head. 

Anyway, we all managed very comfortably 
and merrily in those billets, and I look back on 
them very much as an oasis in a six months' 
desert. 



CHAPTER XXVII 

GETTING FIT — CARICATURING THE CUr6 — 

' ' DIRTY WORK AHEAD ' ' — ^A PROJECTED 

ATTACK — UNLOOKED-FOR ORDERS 

Military life during our ten days was to con- 
sist of getting into good training again in all 
departments. After long spells of trench life, 
troops get very much out of strong, efficient 
marching capabilities, and are also apt to get 
slack all round. These rests, therefore, come 
periodically to all at the front, and are, as it 
were, tonics. If men stayed long enough in 
trenches, I should say, from my studies in 
evolution, that their legs would slowly merge 
into one sort of fin-like tail, and their arms into 
seal-like flappers. In fact, time would convert 
them into intelligent sea-lions, and render them 
completely in harmony with their natural life. 

Our tonic began by being taken, one dose after 
meals, twice daily. In the morning the bat- 
talion generally went for a long route march, 
237 



238 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

and in the afternoon practised military training 
of various kinds in the fields about the village. 
My whole time was occupied with machine-gun 
training. Morning and afternoon my sections 
and I went off out into the country, and 
selecting a good variegated bit of land pro- 
ceeded to go through every phase of machine- 
gun warfare. We practised the use of these 
weapons in woods, open fields, along hedges, etc. 
It was an interesting job. We used to decide on 
some section of ground with an object to be 
attacked in the distance, and approach it in 
all kinds of ways. Competitions would follow 
between the different sections. The days were 
all bright, warm, and sunny, so life and work out 
in the fields and roads there was quite pleasant. 
Each evening we assembled in our cheerful 
billet, and thus our rest went on. My sketching 
now broke out like a rash. I drew a great many 
sketches. I joked in pencil for everyone, in- 
cluding Suzette, Berthe, and Marthe. I am 
sorry to say I plead guilty to having cast a 
certain amount of ridicule at the Cure. He was 
so splendidly austere, and wore such funny 
clothes, that I couldn't help perpetrating several 
sketches of him. The disloyalty of his parish- 




'poor old MAGGIE ! SHE SEEMS TO BE 'AVIN' IT DREADFUL WET AT 'OME 



CARICATURING THE CURE 241 

ioners was very marked in the way they laughed 
at these drawings, which were pinned up in the 
row of cottages. Sometimes I would let him 
off for a day, and then he would come drifting 
past the window again, with his ''Dante" face, 
surmounted by a large curly, faded black hat, 
and I gave way to temptation again. 

He didn't Hke soldiers being billeted in his 
village, so Suzette told me. I think he got 
this outlook from his rather painful experiences 
when the Germans were in the same village, 
prior to being driven north. They had locked 
hirn up in his own cellar for four or five days, 
after removing his best wine, which they drank 
upstairs. This sort of thing does tend towards 
giving one a bitter outlook. He preached a 
sermon whilst we were there. I didn't hear it, 
but was told about it simultaneously by Suzette, 
Berthe, and Marthe, who informed me that it 
was directed against soldiery in general. His 
text had apparently been "Do not trust them, 
gentle ladies. " A gross libel. I retaliated im- 
mediately by drawing a picture of him, with a 
girl sitting on each knee, singing ''The soldiers 
are going, hurrah ! htirrah ! ' ' (time — ' ' The Camp- 
bells are Coming"). 
10 



242 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

I'm afraid I was rather a canker in his village. 

One day, my dear old friend turned up, the 
same who accompanied me on leave to England. 
He didn't know we were having our rest, and 
searched for me first behind Wulverghem. He 
there heard where we were, and came on. He 
was rather a star in a military way, and could, 
therefore, get hold of a car now and again. I 
was delighted to see him, as it was possible for 
me to go into Bailleul with him for the afternoon. 
We went off and had a real good time at the 
* ' Faucon d'Or. " We went out for a short drive 
round in the evening, and then parted. He was 
obliged to get back to somewhere near Bethune 
that night. The next day I was just starting 
off on my machine-gun work when an orderly 
arrived with a message for me. The Colonel 
wanted to see me at headquarters. I went 
along, and arriving at his house found all the 
company commanders, the second in command, 
and the Adjutant, already assembled there. 

''Dirty work ahead," I thought to myself, 
and went into the Colonel's room with the 
others. Enormous maps were produced, and we 
all stood and listened. 

"We are going to make an attack," started 



A PROJECTED ATTACK 243 

the Colonel, so I saw that my conjecture wasn't 
far wrong. He explained the details to us all 
there, and pointed out on the maps as many 
of the geographical features of the forthcoming 
* * show " as he could, after which he told us that, 
that very afternoon, we were all to go on a motor 
bus, that would come for us, down to the al- 
lotted site for the "scrap, " to have a look at the 
ground. This was news, if you like : a thunder- 
bolt in the midst of our rural serenity. At 
two o'clock the bus arrived, and we, the chosen 
initiated few, rattled off down the main street of 
the village and away to the scene of operations. 
Where it was I won't say (cheers from Censor), 
but it took us about an hour to get there. We 
left the motor-bus well back, and walked about 
a couple of miles up roads and communication 
trenches until we reached a line of trenches we 
had never seen before. A wonderful set of 
trenches they were, it seemed to us; beautifully 
built, not much water about, and nice dug-outs. 
The Colonel conferred with several authorities 
who had the matter in hand, and then, pointing 
out the sector in front which affected us, told 
us all to study it to the best of our ability. I 
spent the time with a periscope and a pair of 



244 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

binoculars drinking in the scene. It*s difficult 
to get a good view of the intervening ground 
between opposing lines of trenches in the day 
time, when one's only means of doing so is 
through a periscope. Night is the time for this 
job, when you can go in front and walk about. 
This ground which we had come to see was com- 
pletely fiat, and one had to put a periscope 
pretty high over the parapet to see the sort of 
thing it was. It was no place to put your head 
up to have a look. A bullet went smack into 
the Colonel's periscope and knocked it out of his 
hand. However, with time and patience, we 
formed a pretty accurate idea of the appearance 
of the country opposite. Behind the German 
trench was the remains of a village, a few of the 
houses of which were up level with the Boche 
front Hne. A great scene of wreckage. Every 
single house was broken, and in a crumbling 
state. This was the place we had to take. 
Other regiments were to take other spots on the 
landscape on either side, but this particular 
spot was our objective. I stared long and 
earnestly at the wrecks in front and the inter- 
vening ground. ''About a two-hundred yard 
sprint," I thought to myself. We stayed in 



THE COMING "SHOW* 245 

the trenches an hour or two, and then all went 
back to a spot a couple of miles away and had 
tea, after which we mounted the motor-bus and 
drove back home to our village. We had got 
something to think about now all right; — the 
coming " show " was the feature uppermost in our 
lives now. Everyone keen to get at it, as we all 
felt sure we could push the Boches out of that 
place when the time came. We, the initiated 
few, had to keep our ** inside" information to 
ourselves, and it was supposed to be a dark 
mystery to the rest of the battalion. But I 
imagine that anyone who didn't guess what the 
idea was must have been pretty dense. When a 
motor-bus comes and takes off a group of officers 
for the day, and brings them back at night, one 
would scarcely imagine that they had been to a 
cricket match, or on the annual outing. 

Well, the "tumbril," as we called it, arrived 
each day for nearly a week, and we drove off 
gaily to the appointed spot and saturated our- 
selves in the characteristics of the land we were 
shortly to attack. In the mornings, before we 
started, I took the machine-gun sections out 
into the fields, and by mapping out a similar 
landscape to the one we were going to attack, 



246 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

I rehearsed the coming tribulation as far as 
possible. My gunners were a pretty efficient 
lot, and I was sure they wotdd give a good ac- 
count of themselves on "der Tag." We prac- 
tised bolting across a ploughed field, and coming 
into action, until we could do it in record time. 
My sergeant and senior corporal were both 
excellent men. 

The whole battalion were now in excellent 
trim, and ready for anything that came along. 
A date had been fixed for the *' show, " and now, 
day by day, we were rapidly approaching it. 
It was Friday, I remember, when, as we were 
all sitting in our billets thinking that we were to 
leave on Sunday, a fresh thunderbolt arrived. 
A message was sent round to us all to stand-to 
and be ready to move off that evening. Before 
the appointed day! What could be up now? 
I was full of enthusiasm and curiosity, but was 
rather hampered by having been inoculated the 
day before, and was feeling a bit quaint in con- 
sequence. However, I pulled myself together, 
and set about collecting all the machine gunners, 
guns, and accessories. We said good-bye to 
the fair ones at the billets, and by about five 
o'clock in the evening the whole battalion, 



UNLOOKED-FOR ORDERS 247 

transport and all, was lined up on the main road. 
Soon we moved off. Why were we going before 
our time? Where were we going to? Nobody 
knew except the Colonel, but it was not long 
before we knew as well. 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

WE MARCH FOR YPRES — ^HALT AT LOCRE — A 

BLEAK CAMP AND MEAGRE FARE — SIGNS OF 

BATTLE — FIRST VIEW OF YPRES 

We marched off in the Bailleul direction, and 
ere long entered Bailleul. We didn^t stop, 
but went straight on up the road, out of the 
town, past the Asylum with the baths. It was 
getting dusk now as we tramped along. 

*'The road to Locre,'* I muttered to myself, 
as I saw the direction we had taken. We were 
evidently not going to the place we had been 
rehearsing for. 

* ' Locre ? Ah, yes ; and what's beyond Locre } ' * 
I pulled out my map as we went along. ^* What's 
on beyond Locre?'* I saw it at a glance now, 
and had all my suspicions confirmed. The 
word YPRES stood out in blazing letters from 
the map. Ypres it was going to be, sure enough. 

"It looks like Ypres," I said, turning to 
24S 



HALT AT LOCRE 249 

my sergeant, who was silently trudging along 
behind me. He came up level with me, and 
I showed him the map and the direction we 
were taking. I was mighty keen to see this 
famous spot. Stories of famous fights in that 
great salient were common talk amongst us, 
and had been for a long time. The wonderful 
defence of Ypres against the hordes of Germans 
in the previous October had filled our lines of 
trenches with pride and superiority, but no 
wonderment. Everyone regarded Ypres as a 
strenuous spot, but everyone secretly wanted 
to go there and see it for themselves. I felt 
sure we were now bound for there, or anyway, 
somewhere not far off. We tramped along in 
the growing darkness, up the winding dusty 
road to Locre. When we arrived there it was 
quite dark. The battalion marched right up 
into the sort of village square near the church 
and halted. It was late now, and apparently 
not necessary for us to proceed farther that 
night. We got orders to get billets for our men. 
Locre is not a large place, and fitting a whole 
battalion in is none too easy an undertaking. I 
was standing about a hundred yards down the 
road leading from the church, deciding what to 



250 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

do, when I got orders to billet my men in the 
church. I marched the section into a field, got 
my sergeant, and went to see what could be 
done in the church. It was a queer sight, this 
church; a company of ours had had orders to 
billet there too, and when I got there the men 
were already taking off their equipment and 
making themselves as comfortable as possible 
under the circumstances, in the main body of the 
church. The French clergy had for some time 
granted permission for billeting there; I found 
this out the next morning, when I saw a party 
of nuns cleaning it up as much as possible after 
we had left it. The only part I could see where 
I could find a rest for my men was the part 
where the choir sits. I decided on this for our 
use, and told the sergeant to get the men along, 
and move the chairs away so as to get a large 
enough space for them to lie down in and rest. 

It was a weird scene, that night in the church. 
Imagine a very lofty building, and the only 
light in the place coming from various bits of 
candles stuck about here and there on the backs 
of the chairs. All was dark and drear, if you 
Hke : a fitting setting for our entry into the Ypres 
salient. When I had fixed up my section all 



TOWARDS YPRES 251 

right, I left the church and went to look about 
for the place I was supposed to sleep in. It 
turned out to be a room at the house occupied 
by the Colonel. I got in just in time to have a 
bit of a meal before the servants cleared the 
things away to get ready for the early start 
the next day. I spent that night in my great- 
coat on the stone floor of the room, and not much 
of a night at that. We were all up and paraded 
at six, and ready to move off. We soon started 
and trekked off down the road out of Locre to- 
wards Ypres. I noticed a great change in the 
scenery now. The land was flatter and alto- 
gether more uninteresting than the parts we had 
come from. The weather was fine and hot, 
which made our march harder for us. We 
were all strapped up to the eyes with equipment 
of every description, so that we fully appre- 
ciated the short periodic rests when they came. 
The road got less and less attractive as we went 
on, added to which a horrible gusty wind was 
blowing the dust along towards us, too, which 
made it worse. It was a most cheerless, barren, 
arid waste through which we were now passing. 
I wondered why the Belgians hadn't given it 
away long ago, and thus saved any further 



252 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

dispute on the matter. We were now making 
for Vlamertinghe, which is a place about half- 
way between Locre and Ypres, and we all felt 
sure enough now that Ypres was where we were 
going; besides, passers-by gave some of us a tip 
or two, and rumours were current that there was 
a bit of a bother on in the salient. Still, there 
was nothing told us definitely, and on we went, 
up the dusty, uninteresting road. Somewhere 
about midday we halted alongside an immense 
grassless field, on which were innumerable 
wooden huts of the simplest and most unattrac- 
tive construction. The dust whirled and swirled 
around them, making the whole place look as 
uninviting as possible. It was the rottenest and 
least encouraging camp I have ever seen. IVe 
seen a few monstrosities in the camp line in 
England, and in France, but this was far and 
away a champion in repulsion. We halted 
opposite this place, as I have said, and in a few 
moments were all marched into the central, 
baked-mud square, in the midst of the huts. I 
have since learned that this camp is no more, so 
I don't mind mentioning it. We were now dis- 
missed, whereupon we all collared huts for our 
men and ourselves, and sat down to rest. 



SURVEYING THE SCENE 253 

We had had a very early and scratch sort 
of a breakfast, so were rather keen to get at 
the lunch question. The limbers were the last 
things to turn up, being in the rear of the 
battalion, but when they did the cooks soon 
pulled the necessary things out and proceeded 
to knock up a meal. 

I went outside my hut and surveyed the scene 
whilst I they got the lunch ready. It was a 
rotten place. The huts hadn^t got any sides to 
them, but were made by two slopes of wood fixed 
at the top, and had triangular ends. There 
were just a few huts built with sides, but not 
many. Apart from the huts the desert con- 
tained nothing except men in war-worn, dirty 
khaki, and clouds of dust. It reminded me very 
much of India, as I remembered it from my 
childhood days. The land all around this 
mud plain was flat and scrubby, with noth- 
ing of interest to look at anywhere. But, 
yes, there was — just one thing. Away to the 
north, I could just see the top of the towers of 
Ypres. 

• I wondered how long we were going to stay 
in this Sahara, and turned back into the hut 
again. Two or three of us were resting on a 



254 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

little scanty straw in that hut, and now, as 
ive guessed that it was about the time when 
the cooks would have got the lunch ready, 
we crossed to another larger hut, where a long 
bare wooden table was laid out for us. With 
sore eyes and a parched throat I sat down and 
devoured two chilly sardines, reposing on a 
water biscuit, drank about a couple of gallons 
of water, and felt better. There wasn't much 
conversation at that meal ; we were all too busy 
thinkmg. Besides, the CO. was getting mes- 
sages all the time, and was immersed m the 
study of a large map, so we thought we had 
better keep quiet. 

Our Colonel was a splendid person, as good 
a one as any battalion could wish to have. 
(He's sure to buy a copy of this book after 
that.) He was with the regiment all through 
that 1914-15 winter, and is now a Brigadier. 

We had made all preparations to stay in the 
huts at that place for the night, when, at about 
four o'clock in the afternoon, another message 
arrived and was handed to the CO. 

He issued his orders. We were to march off 
at once. Everyone was delighted, as the place 
was unattractive, and what's more, now that we 



MAKING FOR YPRES 255 

were on the war-path, we wanted to get on with 
the job, whatever it was. 

Now we were on the road once more, and 
marching on towards Ypres. The whole bri- 
gade was on the road somewhere, some bat- 
talions in front of us and some behind. On 
we went through the driving dust and dismal 
scenery, making, I could clearly see, for Ypres. 
We ticked off the miles at a good steady march- 
ing pace, and in course of time turned out of our 
long, dusty, winding lane on to a wide cobbled 
main road, leading evidently into the town of 
Ypres itself, now about two miles ahead. It 
was a fine sight, looking back down the winding 
column of men. A long line of sturdy, bronzed 
men, in dust-covered khaki, tramping over the 
grey cobbled road, singing and whistHng at in- 
tervals; the rattling and clicking of the various 
metallic parts of their equipment forming a 
kind of low accompaniment to their songs. 
We halted about a mile out of the city, and all 
'*fell out*' on the side of the road, and sat about 
on heaps of stones or on the bank of the ditch 
at the road-side. It was easy enough to see 
now where we were going, and what was up. 
There was evidently a severe "scrap" on. 



256 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

Parties of battered, dishevelled looking men, 
belonging to a variety of regiments, were now 
streaming past down the road — many French- 
African soldiers amongst them. From these we 
learned that a tremendous attack was in pro- 
gress, but got no details. Their stories received 
corroboration by the fact that we could see 
many shells bursting in and around the city of 
Ypres. These vagrant men were wounded in 
a degree, inasmuch as most of them had been 
undergoing some prodigious bombardment and 
were dazed from shell-shock. They cheered us 
with the usual exaggerated and harrowing yarns 
common to such people, and passed on. This 
was what we had come here for — to participate 
in this business; not very nice, but we were all 
"for it, " anyway. If we hadn't come here, we 
would have been attacking at that other place, 
and this was miles more interesting. If one 
has ever participated in an affair of arms at 
Ypres, it gives one a sort of honourable trade- 
mark for the rest of the war as a member of the 
accepted successful Matadors of the Flanders 
Bull-ring. 

We sat about at the side of the road for 
about half an hour, then got the order to fall 




/; 



THE TIN OPENER 



FIRST VIEW OF YPRES 259 

in again. Stiff and weary, I left my heap of 
stones, took my place at the head of the section, 
and prepared for the next act. On we went 
again down the cobbled road, crossed a com- 
plicated mixture of ordinary rails and tram- 
lines, and struck off up a narrow road to the left, 
which apparently also ended in the city. It was 
now evening, the sky was grey and cloudy. 
Ypres, only half a mile away, now loomed up 
dark and grey against the sky-line. Shells 
were falling in the city, with great hollow sound- 
ing crashes. We marched on up the road. 



CHAPTER XXTX 

GETTING NEARER — ^A LUGUBRIOUS PARTY — STILL 
NEARER — BLAZING YPRES — ORDERS 
FOR ATTACK 

FTER about another 
twenty minutes* march 
we halted again. Some- 

fl^rK ""^^7^^"^ \ ^^^^S ^^ other was 
J ^^^xLi ) \ going on up the road 

in front, which pre- 
vented our moving. 
V/e stood about in 
the lane, and watched the shells bursting 
in the town. We were able to watch shells 
bursting closer before we had been there long. 
With a screeching whistle a shell shot over our 
heads and exploded in the field on our left. 
This was the signal, apparently, for shrapnel 
to start bursting promiscuously about the fields 
in all directions, which it did. 

260 




STILL NEARER 261 

Altogether the lane was an unwholesome 
spot to stand about in. We were there some 
time, wondering when one of the bursts of 
shrapnel would strike the lane, but none did. 
Straggling, small groups of Belgian civilians 
were now passing down the lane, driven out 
no doubt from some cottage or other that 
until now they had managed to persist in 
living in. Mournful little groups would pass, 
wheeling their total worldly possessions on a 
barrow. 

Suddenly we were moved on again, and as 
suddenly halted a few yards farther on. With- 
out a doubt, strenuous operations and complica- 
tions were taking place ahead. A few of the 
officers collected together by a gate at the side 
of the lane and had a smoke and a chat. "I 
wonder how much longer we're going to stick 
about here," someone said. "What about 
going into that house over there and see if 
there's a fire?" He indicated a tumbled-down 
cottage of a fair size, which stood nearly op- 
posite us on the far side of the lane. It was 
almost dark by now, and the wind made it 
pretty cold work, standing and sitting about in 
the lane. Four of us crossed the roadway and 



262 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

entered the yard of the cottage. We knocked 
at the door, and asked if we might come in and 
sit by the fire for a bit. We asked in French, 
and found that it was a useless extravagance on 
our part, as they only spoke Flemish, and what 
a terrible language that is! These were Fle- 
mish people — the real goods; we hadn't struck 
any before. 

They seemed to understand the signs we 
made; at all events they let us into the place. 
There was a dairy alongside the house belonging 
to them, and in here our men were streaming, 
one after another, paying a few coppers for a 
drink of milk. The woman serving it out with 
a ladle into their mess-tins was keeping up a 
flow of comment all the time in Flemish. No- 
body except herself understood a word of what 
she was saying. Hardy people, those dwellers 
in that cottage. Shrapnel was dropping about 
here and there in the fields near by, and at any 
moment might come into the roof of their cot- 
tage, or through the flimsy walls. 

We four went inside, and into their main 
room. — the kitchen. It was in the same old 
style which we knew so well. A large square, 
dark, and dingy room, with one of their popular 



A LUGUBRIOUS PARTY 263 

long stoves sticking out from one wall. Round 
this stove, drawn up in a wide crescent forma- 
tion, was a row of chairs with high backs. On 
each chair sat a man or a woman, dressed in 
either black or very dark clothes. Nobody spoke, 
but all were staring into the stove. I wished, 
momentarily, I had stayed in the lane. It was 
like breaking in on some weird sect — "Stove 
Worshippers." One wouldn't have been sur- 
prised if, suddenly, one member of the party 
had removed the lid of the stove and thrown in 
a "grey powder," or something of the sort. 
This to be followed by flames leaping high into 
the air, whilst low-toned monotonous chanting 
would break out from the assembly. Feast 
in honour of their god ''Shrapnel," who was 
"angry." I suppose I shouldn't make fun of 
these people though. It was enough to make 
them silent and lugubrious, to have all their 
country and their homes destroyed. We sat 
around the stove with them, and offered them 
cigarettes. We talked to each other in English; 
they sat silently listening and understanding 
nothing. I am sure they looked upon all armies 
and soldiers, irrespective of nationality, as a 
confounded nuisance. I am sure they wished 



264 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

we'd go and fight the matter out somewhere 
else. And no wonder. 

We sat in there for a short time, and stepped 
out into the road again just in time to hear the 
order to advance. We hadn't far to go now. 
It was quite dark as we turned into a very large 
flat field at the back of Ypres, right close up 
against the outskirts of the town. Just the 
field, I felt sure, that a circus would choose, if 
visiting that neighbourhood. 

The battalion spread itself out over the 
field and came to the conclusion that this 
was where it would have to stay for the night. 
It was all very cold and dark now. We sat 
about on the great field in our great-coats and 
waited for the field kitchens and rations to 
arrive. As we sat there, just at the back of 
Ypres, we could hear and see the shells bursting 
in the city in the darkness. The shelling was 
getting worse, fires were breaking out in the 
deserted town, and bright yellow flames shot 
out here and there against the blackened sky. 
On the arrival of the field kitchens we all man- 
aged to get some tea in our mess-tins; and the 
rum ration being issued we were a little more 
fortified against the cold. We sat for the most 



BLAZING YPRES 265 

part in great-coats and silence, watching the 
shelling of Ypres. Suddenly a huge fire broke 
out in the centre of the town. The sky was a 
whirling and twisting mass of red and yellow 
flames, and enormous volumes of black smoke. 
A truly grand and awful spectacle. The tall 
ruins of the Cloth Hall and Cathedral were 
alternately silhouetted or brightly illuminated in 
the yellow glare of flames. And now it started 
to rain. Down it came, hard and fast. We 
huddled together on the cold field and prepared 
ourselves to expect anything that might come 
along now. Shells and rain were both falling 
in the field. I think a few shells, meant for 
Ypres, had rather overshot the mark and had 
come into our field in consequence. 

I leaned up as one of a tripod of three of us, 
my face towards the burning city. The two 
\)thers were my old pal, the platoon commander 
at St. Yvon, and a subaltern of one of the other 
companies. I sat and watched the flames lick- 
ing round the Cloth Hall. I remember asking 
a couple of men in front to shift a bit so that I 
could get a better view. It poured with rain, 
and we went sitting on in that horrible field, 
wondering what the next move was to be. 



266 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

At about eleven o'clock, an orderly came 
along the field with a mackintosh ground-sheet 
over his head, and told me the Colonel wished to 
see me. ** Where is he?" I asked. "In that 
little cottage place at the far corner of the field, 
near the road, sir. " I rose up and thus spoiled 
our human tripod. "Where are you going 
'B.B. ' ? " asked my St. Yvon friend. ' ' Colonel's 
sent for me," I replied. "Well, come back as 
soon as you can." I left, and never saw him 
again. He was killed early the next morning; 
one of the best chaps I ever knew. 

I went down the field to the cottage at the 
corner, and, entering, found all the company 
commanders, the second in command, the Ad- 
jutant, and the Colonel. "We shall attack at 
4 A.M. to-morrow," he was saying. This was 
the moment at which I got my Fragment idea, 
"The push, by one who's been pushed!'* "We 
shall attack at dawn!" 

The Colonel went on to explain the plans. 
We stood around in the semi-darkness, the only 
light being a small candle, whose flame was 
being blown about by the draught from the 
broken window. 

"We shall move off from here at midnight, 



ORDERS 267 

or soon after,*' he concluded, **and go up the 
road to St. Julien. " 

We all dispersed to our various commands. 
I went and got my sergeant and section com- 
manders together. I explained the coming 
operations to them. Sitting out in the field 
in the rain, the map on my knees being occa- 
sionally brightly illuminated by the burning 
city, I looked out the road to St. Julien. 



CHAPTER XXX 

RAIN AND MUD — ^A TRYING MARCH — IN THE 

THICK OF IT— A WOUNDED OFFICER — ^HEAVY 

SHELLING — I GET MY " QUIETUS !" 

At a little after midnight we left the field, 
marching down the road which led towards 
the Yser Canal and the village of St. Jean. 
Our transport remained behind in a certain 
field that had been selected for the purpose. 
The whole brigade was on the road, our bat- 
talion being the last in the long column. The 
road from the field in which we had been resting 
to the village of St. Jean passes through the 
outskirts of Ypres, and crosses the Yser Canal 
on its way. I couldn't see the details as it was 
a dark night, and the rain was getting worse 
as time went on. I knew what had been hap- 
pening now in the last forty-eight hours, and 
what we were going to do. The Germans had 
launched gas in the war for the first time, and, 

268 



BATTLE OF YPRES 269 

as everyone knows now, had by this means 
succeeded in breaking the line on a wide front 
to the north of Ypres. The Germans were 
directing their second great effort against the 
salient. 

The second battle of Ypres had begun. We 
were making for the threatened spot, and were 
going to attack them at four o'clock in the 
morning. 

Ypres, at this period, ought to have been seen 
to get an accurate reaHzation of what it was 
like. All other parts of the front faded into a 
pleasing memory; so it seemed to me as I 
marched along. I thought of our rest at the 
village, the billets, the Cure, the bright sunny 
days of our coimtry life there, and then com- 
pared them with this wretched spot we were in 
now. A ghastly comparison. 

We were marching in pouring rain and 
darkness down a muddy, mangled road, shat- 
tered poplar trees sticking up in black streaks 
on either side. Crash after crash, shells were 
falling and exploding all around us, and behind 
the burning city. The road took a turn. We 
marched for a short time parallel to now distant 
Ypres. Through the charred skeleton wrecks of 



270 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

houses one caught glimpses of the yellow flames 
mounting to the sky. We passed over the Yser 
Canal, dirty, dark, and stagnant, reflecting the 
yellow glow of the flames. On our left was a 
church and graveyard, both blown to a thou- 
sand pieces. Tombstones lying about and stick- 
ing up at odd angles all over the tom-up ground. 
I guided my section a little to one side to avoid 
a dead horse lying across the road. The noise 
of shrapnel bursting about us only ceased oc- 
casionally, making way for ghastly, ominous 
silences. And the rain kept pouring down. 

What a march! As we proceeded, the road 
got rougher and narrower: debris of all sorts, 
and horrible to look upon, lay about on either 
side. We halted suddenly, and were allowed to 
"fall out" for a few minutes. 

My section and I had drawn up opposite 
what had once been an estaminet. I entered, 
and told them all to come in and stay there out 
of the rain. The roof still had a few tiles 
left on it, so the place was a little drier than 
the road outside. The floor was strewn with 
broken glass, chairs, and bottles. I got hold 
of a three-legged chair, and by balancing myself 
against one of the walls, tried to do a bit of a 



A PERFECT DELUGE 271 

doze. I was precious near tired out now, from 
want of sleep and a surfeit of marching. I told 
my sergeant to wake me when the order came 
along, and then and there slept on that chair for 
twenty minutes, lulled off by the shrapnel burst- 
ing along the road outside. My sergeant woke 
me. "We are going on again, sir!" "Right 
oh!" I said, and left my three-legged chair. I 
shouted to the section to "fall in, " and followed 
on after the battaHon up the road once more. 
After we had covered another horrible half-mile 
we halted again, but this time no houses were 
near. How it rained! A perfect deluge. I 
was wearing a great-coat, and had all my equip- 
ment strapped on over the top. The men all 
had mackintosh capes. We were all wet through 
and through, but nobody bothered a rap about 
that. Any one trying to find a fresh discomfort 
for us now, that would make us wince, would 
have been hard put to it. 

People will scarcely credit it, but times 
like these don't dilute the tenacity or light- 
heartedness of our soldiers. You can hear a 
joke on these occasions, and hear the laughter 
at it too. 

In the shattered estaminet we had just left, 



272 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

one of the men went behind the almost un- 
recognizable bar-counter, and operating an 
imaginary handle, asked a comrade, *'And 
what's yours, mate?'* 

Again we got the order to advance, and on we 
went. We were now nearing the village of 
Wieltj, about two miles from St. Jean, which we 
had passed. The ruined church we had seen 
was at St. Jean. 

The road was now perfectly straight, bor- 
dered on either side by broken poplar trees, 
beyond which large fiat fields lay under the 
mysterious darkness. As we went on we could 
see a faint, red glow ahead. This turned out to 
be Wieltj. All that was left of it, a smouldering 
ruin. Here and there the bodies of dead men 
lay about the road. At intervals I could dis- 
cern the stiffened shapes of corpses in the ditches 
which bordered the road. We went through 
Wieltj without stopping. Passing out at the 
other side we proceeded up this awful, shell- 
torn road, towards a slight hill, at the base of 
which we stopped. Now came my final orders. 
*' Come on at once, follow up the battalion, who, 
with the brigade, are about to attack." 

"Now we're for it," I said to myself, and 



IN THE THICK OF IT 273 

gave the order to unlimber the guns. One 
limber had been held up some little way back 
I found, by getting jammed in a shell-hole in 
the road. I couldn't wait for it to come up, 
so sent my sergeant back with some men to get 
hold of the guns and tackle in it, and follow on 
as soon as they could. I got out the rest of the 
things that were there with us and prepared to 
start on after the battalion. "I'll go to the 
left, and you'd better go to the right, " I shouted 
to my sergeant. "Here, Smith, let's have your 
rifle," I said, turning to my servant. I had 
decided that he had best stay and look after the 
limbers. I seized his rifle, and slipping on a 
couple of bandoHers of cartridges, led on up the 
slight hill, followed by my section carrying the 
machine guns. I felt that a rifle was going to 
be of more use to me in this business than a 
revolver, and, anyway, it was just as well to 
have both. 

It was now just about four o'clock in the 
morning. A faint light was creeping into the 
sky. The rain was abating a bit, thank 
goodness ! 

We topped the rise, and rushed on down 
the road as fast as was possible under the 

x8 



274 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

circumstances. Now we were in it! Bullets 
were flying through the air in all directions. 
Ahead, in the semi-darkness, I could just see 
the forms of men running out into the fields 
on either side of the road in extended order, 
and beyond them a continuous heavy crackling 
of rifle-fire showed me the main direction of the 
attack. A few men had gone down already, and 
no wonder — the air was thick with bullets. The 
machine-gun ofiicer of one of the other regiments 
in the brigade was shot right through the head 
as he went over the brow of the hill. I found 
one of his machine-gun sections a short time 
later, and appropriated them for our own use. 
After we had gone down the road for about two 
hundred yards I thought that my best plan was 
to get away over to the left a bit, as the greatest 
noise seemed to come from there. ''Come on, 
you chaps," I shouted, "we'll cross this field, 
and get to that hedge over there. " We dashed 
across, intermingled with a crowd of High- 
landers, who were also making to the left. 
Through a cloud of bullets, flying like rice at a 
wedding, we reached the other side of the field. 
Only one casualty — one man with a shot in the 
knee. 




SUBTERRANEAN VOICE. COMMENTING ON THE ABNORMAL ACTIVITY OF THE MORTAR 
ACROSS THE WAY'. "tHEY'RE DEVILS TO SNIPE, AIN't THEY, BILL? 



SPRAYS OF BULLETS 277 

Couldn't get a good view of the enemy 
from the hedge, so I decided to creep along 
farther to the left still, to a spot I saw on the 
left front of a large farm which stood about two 
hundred yards behind us. The German ma- 
chine guns were now busy, and sent sprays of 
bullets flicking up the ground all round us. 
Lining behind a slight fold in the ground we saw 
them whisking through the grass, three or four 
inches over our heads. We slowly worked our 
way across to the left, past an old, wide ditch 
full of stagnant water, and into a shallow gully 
beyond. Dawn had come now, and in the cold 
grey light I saw our men out in front of me ad- 
vancing in short rushes towards a large wood in 
front. The Germans were firing star shells into 
the air in pretty large numbers, why, I couldn't 
make out, as there was quite enough light now 
to see by. I ordered the section out of the gully, 
and ran across the open to a bit of old trench I 
saw in the field. This was the only suitable spot 
I could see for bringing our guns to bear on 
the enemy, and assist in the attack. We fixed 
up a couple of machine guns, and awaited a 
favourable opportunity. I could see a lot of 
Germans running along in front of the wood 



278 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

towards one end of it. We laid our aim on the 
wood, which seemed to me the chief spot to go 
for. One or two of my men had not managed to 
get up to the gun position as yet. They were 
ammimition carriers, and had had a pretty hard 
job with it. I left the guns to run back and 
hurry them on. The rifle-fire kept up an inces- 
sant rattle the whole time, and now the German 
gunners started shelling the farm behind us. 
Shell after shell burst beyond, in front of, and 
on either side of the farm. Having got up the 
ammunition, I ran back towards the guns past 
the farm. In front of me an officer was hurry- 
ing along with a message towards a trench 
which was on the left of our new-found gun 
position. He ran across the open towards it. 
When about forty yards from me I saw him 
throw up his hands and collapse on the ground. 
I hurried across to him, and lifted his head on to 
my knee. He couldn't speak and was rapidly 
turning a deathly pallor. I undid his equip- 
ment and the buttons of his tunic as fast as I 
coiild, to find out where he had been shot. 
Right through the chest, I saw. The left side 
of his shirt, near his heart, was stained deep with 
blood. A captain in the Canadians, I noticed. 



A WOUNDED OFFICER 279 

The message he had been carrying lay near him. 
I didn't know quite what to do. I turned in the 
direction of my gun section without disturbing 
his head, and called out to them to throw me 
over a water-bottle. A man named Mills ran 
across with one, and took charge of the captain, 
whilst I went through his pockets to try and dis- 
cover his name. I found it in his pocket book. 
His identity disc had apparently been lost. 

With the message I ran back to the farm, 
and, as luck would have it, came across a 
colonel in the Canadians. I told him about the 
captain who had been carrying the message, and 
said if there was a stretcher about I could get 
him in. All movement in the attack had now 
ceased, but the rifle and shell Are was on as 
strong as ever. My corporal was with the two 
guns, and had orders to fire as soon as an op- 
portunity arose, so I thought my best plan was 
to see to getting this officer in while there was a 
chance. I got hold of another subaltern in the 
farm, and together we ran back with a stretcher 
to the spot where I had left Mills and the 
captain. We lifted him on to the stretcher. 
He seemed a bit better, but his breathing was 
very difficult. How I managed to hold up 



28o BULLETS AND BILLETS 

that stretcher I don't know; I was just verging 
on complete exhaustion by this time. I had to 
take a pause about twenty yards from the farm 
and He flat out on the ground for a moment or 
two to recuperate sufficiently to finish the 
journey. We got him in and put him down in 
an outbuilding which had been ttirned into a 
temporary dressing station. Shells were crash- 
ing into the roof of the farm and exploding 
round it in great profusion. Every minute one 
heard the swirling rush overhead, the momen- 
tary pause, saw the cloud of red dust, then 
^'Crumph!" That farm was going to be ex- 
tinguished, I could plainly see. I went along 
the edge of the dried-up moat at the back, to- 
wards my guns. I couldn't stand up any longer. 
I lay down on the side of the moat for five min- 
utes. Twenty yards away the shells burst 
round and in the farm, but I didn't care, rest 
was all I wanted. "What about my sergeant 
and those other guns?" I thought, as I lay 
there. I rose, and cut across the open space 
again to the two guns. 

"You know what to do here. Corporal?" 
I said. " I am going round the farm over to the 
right to see what's happened to the others. " 




FIRST DISCOVERED IN THE ALLUVIAL DEPOSITS OF SOUTHERN FLANDERS. 

FEEDS ALMOST EXCLUSIVELY ON JAM AND WATER BISCUITS. 

hobby: filling sandbags, on dark and rainy NIGHTS 



HEAVY SHELLING 283 

I left him, and went across towards the farm. 
As I went I heard the enormous ponderous, 
gurgHng, rotating sound of large shells coming. 
I looked to my left. Four columns of black 
smoke and earth shot up a hundred feet into the 
air, not eighty yards away. Then four mighty 
reverberating explosions that rent the air. A 
row of four "Jack Johnsons'* had landed not a 
hundred yards away, right amongst the lines of 
men, lying out firing in extended order. I went 
on, and had nearly reached the farm when 
another four came over and landed fifty yards 
farther up the field towards us. 

"They'll have our guns and section, '^' I 
thought rapidly, and hurried on to find out what 
had become of my sergeant. The shelling of 
the farm continued; I ran past it between two 
explosions and raced along the old gulley we had 
first come up. Shells have a way of missing a 
building, and getting something else near by. 
As I was on the sloping bank of the gully I heard 
a colossal rushing swish in the air, and then 
didn't hear the resultant crash .... 

All seemed dull and foggy; a sort of silence, 
worse than all the shelling, surrounded me. I 
lay in a filthy stagnant ditch covered with 



284 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

mud and slime from head to foot. I suddenly 
started to tremble all over. I couldn't grasp 
where I was. I lay and trembled ... I had 
been blown up by a shell. 



I lay there some little time, I imagine, with 
a most peculiar sensation. All fear of shells 
and explosions had left me. I still heard 
them dropping about and exploding, but I 
listened to them and watched them as calmly 
as one would watch an apple fall off a tree. I 
couldn't make myself out. Was I all right or 
all wrong? I tried to get up, and then I knew. 
The spell was broken. I shook all over, and 
had to lie still, with tears pouring down my 
face. 



I could see my part in this battle was over. 



CHAPTER XXXI 

SLOWLY RECOVERING — ^FIELD HOSPITAL — ^AM- 
BULANCE TRAIN — BACK IN ENGLAND 

How I ever got back I don't know. I re- 
member dragging myself into a cottage, in 
the garden of which lay a row of dead men. I 
remember someone giving me a glass of water 
there, and seeing a terribly mutilated body on 
the floor being attended to. And, finally, I 
remember being helped down the Wieltj road 
by a man into a field dressing station. Here I 
was labelled and sent immediately down to a 
hospital about four miles away. Arrived there, 
I lay out on a bench in a collapsed state, and I 
remember a cheery doctor injecting something 
into my wrist. I then lay on a stretcher await- 
ing further transportation. My good servant 
Smith somehow discovered my whereabouts, 
and turned up at this hospital. He sat beside 
me and gave me a writing-pad to scribble a note 
285 



286 BULLETS AND BILLETS 

on. I scrawled a line to my mother to say I had 
been knocked out, but was perfectly all right. 
Smith went back to the battalion, and I lay on 
the stretcher, partially asleep. Night came on 
and I went off into a series of agonizing dreams. 
I awoke with a start. I was being lifted up from 
the floor on the stretcher. They carried me 
out. It was bright moonlight, and looking up 
I saw the moon, a dazzling white, against the 
dark blue sky. The stretcher and I were 
pushed into an ambulance in which were three 
other cases beside myself. We were driven off 
to some station or other. I stared up at the 
canvas bottom of the stretcher above me, try- 
ing to realize it all. Presently we reached the 
train. Another glimpse of the moon, and I was 
shd into the ambulance car. . . . 

In three days I was back in England at a 
London hospital — "A Fragment from France," 



"A War Lord of Laughter "— Tie 
Literary Digest. 

Fragments from 
France 



Author of 



BuUet? ^ Met§ 



5/.75 

Captain Bruce Bairnsfather's sketches set all England 
chuckling, when they first appeared in the Bystander, and 
they have met with as hearty a welcome by Americans 
who have had the luck to see them. Greatest of all com- 
mendation, German prisoners have been known to be- 
come hilarious over these indescribable pictures of life in 
the trenches, and war-fed "Tommys" roar over them. 
Now, with their amusing captions, they have been 
gathered into one volume. 

These pictures have won in England for the author the 
title ' ' The man who made the Empire laush," and caused 
the Literary Digest to refer to him as " A War Lord of 
Laughter." They are all war pictures, but calculated to 
take a deal of the bitterness out of war. 



IT IS THE REAL STUFF 



OVER THE TOP 



BY AN AMERICAN SOLDIER WHO WENT 

ARTHUR GUY EMPEY 

MACHINE GUNNER, SERVING IN FRANCE 
JtUTHOR OF 

"FIRST CALL" 

For a year and a half, until he 
fell wounded in No Man's Land, this 
American soldier saw more actual 
fighting and real warfare than any war 
correspondent who has written about 
the war. His experiences are grim, 
but they are thrilling and lightened by 
a touch of humor as original as the 
Soldiers Three. And they are true. 

12'', 16 Illustrations and Diagrams, $1,50 net. 
By mail, $1,60 

TOGETHER WITH TOMMY'S DICTIONARY OF THE 
TRENCHES 

" Over The Top with the Best of 

Luck and Give Them Hell!" 

The British Soldier's War Cryt as be goes orer the 
top of the trench to the charge 



Ordeal by Fire 

By 

Marcel Berger 

A Sergeant in the French Army 
12". 540 pages. $1.50. By mail. $1.60 



The French "Mr. Britling 



55 



Everyone who has read "Mn 
Britling Sees It Through" will 
want to read *t Ordeal by Fire." 



V-.^ ;... ^^: 



L 



An Inspiring portrayal of the 
spirit of the French people and 
of Fighting France. 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



When the Prussians 
Came to Poland 

By 
Mme. Laura de Turczjmowicz 

Marquise de Gosdawa 

I2^ Illustrated. $1.25 net. By mail, $1.35 

The story of an American woman, the wife 
of a Polish noble, caught in her home by the 
floodtide of the German invasion of the ancient 
kingdom of Poland. 

A straightforward narrative, terribly real, of 
her experiences in the heart of the eastern 
war-zone, of her struggle with the extreme 
conditions, of her Red Cross work, of her 
fight for the lives of her children and herself 
against the dread Typhus, and at last, of her 
release and journey through Germany and 
Holland to this country. How truly she was 
in line of the German advance may be ap* 
preciated from the fact that Field Marshal 
von Hindenburg for some days made his 
headquarters under her roof. 



G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York 



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